Cultural Inclusion and Accountability Workshop

DESCRIPTION OF SESSION

Title: Building a Research Roadmap for Cultural Inclusion and Accountability Part II Authors: Victoria Ennis Med (presenter), Rulan Parekh MD, MS, FRCPC, Cynthia Maxwell MD FRCSC DABOM, Alison Williams PhD, Soumia Meiyappan MSc PMP, Marie Steele MHSc Abstract: In April 2025, the Women’s College Hospital (WCH) Department of Academics will host a Cultural Inclusion and Accountability Workshop focused on Black communities to create a WCH-specific research roadmap. This roadmap will guide researchers, the Research Ethics Board, and the institution in engaging meaningfully with Black communities. The goal is to improve healthcare outcomes through research and knowledge application. Objectives include: i) increasing knowledge on anti-Black racism to strengthen Black health outcomes and research participation among the Black community, ii) increase knowledge and application of the Engagement, Governance, Access and Protection (EGAP) framework among researchers at WCH, iii) inviting expert insights to develop a research roadmap for Black participants, and iv) conduct a needs assessment to understand Black communities and participation in research, thereby ultimately strengthening our REB review process and our institutional learning centered on TCPS2 Chapter 4, 9 and 10. Expected outcomes include creating a WCH-specific roadmap for ethical research including Black participants and communities. Additionally, we want to better understand how the TCPS2 principles might be operationalized in different ways based on the community needs. Our learning from Chapter 9 and our past workshop focused on Indigenous communities (held in Mar. 2023) has given us a framework on what considerations are important to communities that have faced marginalization and health inequities. There is limited guidance on study design, execution, implementation and knowledge translation for the Black community. Our researchers and REB will learn from this workshop, contribute to the development of a roadmap and advance competence, compliance and expand the breadth of TCPS2 principles. The attendees will comprise of WCH staff, researchers, WCH REB members, clinicians, students and administrative staff, as well as external speakers and community members relevant to Black health equity. The research disciplines involved in this event will include Research Ethics, Community Partnerships, Maternal Health, Mental Health, Breast Cancer, and Allyship. The key themes of the event will be data governance, ethics/consent, patient & community engagement, and health disciplines as they relate to research with Black communities.