As diabetes rates in Canada continue to rise, experts are sounding the alarm about how the disease affects Black Canadians in particular.
“The Canadian Health Coalition conducted a poll last summer and what we found out was more than twice as many non-white Canadians have diabetes than white Canadians,” says Jason MacLean, chair of the Canadian Health Coalition. “A lot of my friends and family have diabetes. You see it within the community. So, this is no surprise to me that there are more instances of diabetes in the black community than there is in others.”
MacLean says there are many factors that help explain why that is, including a lack of national data on the issue.
“There’s no concerted effort by government or by health officials to do studies in Black communities. And that’s something that’s been ongoing for a while,” he says. “You can see a lot of data that’s coming out of the U.S.; however you can’t see data coming out of Canada because there isn’t a will and a want to find out that information.”
Barb Hamilton-Hinch, an associate professor for Dalhousie University’s School of Health and Human Performance, says while collecting race-based data is important, another impediment is the lack of trust some members of the Black community have in the health-care system.
“We have to develop trust in our Black community for people to understand that it’s not going to be used against them but for them,” says Hamilton-Hinch.
Hamilton-Hinch says physical activity and eating healthy can reduce the risk, but accessibility to those things presents even more barriers for African-Nova Scotian communities.
“A lot of our communities are located in food deserts. And even when they are close to food, the food is very expensive. Very few of our communities have sidewalks just for easy physical activity that’s one of our cheapest and most efficient ways to be physically active is by walking,” says Hamilton-Hinch.
She says it becomes particularly difficult once Black patients seek medical treatment from non-Black physicians who may not be familiar with how certain diseases disproportionately affect them.
“You’re at a position when you have to advocate for yourself, which is very challenging if you don’t have the language and you don’t have the education to say to your physician, ‘I need to have my mammogram at 35 and they’re saying no you need to wait till 40 because that’s what the research tells us,’” says Hamilton-Hinch. “So, we know that some of the research that is out there isn’t relevant or isn’t speaking to people of African descent.”
Hamilton-Hinch says having more community-based information sessions about that focus on Black Canadians and diabetes is a good step in the right direction.
“Our Black man community, our African Nova Scotian communities, can talk about the risk of diabetes and how we can prevent it,” she says.
