Operationalizing 'race' in its use to track the impact of COVID-19

 
Speaker:
Sachil Singh, Assistant Professor and post-doctoral fellow, Department of Sociology

‘Race’ is often turned to in healthcare to inform patient diagnosis and treatment. However, research shows that using race in this way is problematic partly because of the challenges with objectively measuring and defining race. Yet, many health equity groups promote the collection of race data to better understand the impacts of COVID-19, citing patterns of disparate racial experiences with the pandemic that governments tend to overlook. While racialized experiences should not be ignored, collecting race data to track COVID-19 presents its own challenges. In this talk, Sachil Singh will focus on the Canadian context to situate his preliminary research findings on concerns with tracking COVID-19 by race.

Sachil Singh is an Assistant Professor (adjunct) of Sociology at Queen’s, and Associated Faculty member with the Surveillance Studies Centre (https://www.sscqueens.org/people/sachil-singh )

FREE EVENT but registration is required.