Poor health disparities among racialized students in a Canadian university

The short report aims to examine differences in self-rated general health across racialized post-secondary students at a university in Ontario, Canada.

Binary logistic regression analysis was used to examine poor health as an outcome among racialized students as whole, as well as across Asian, South Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Middle Eastern student groups in comparison to white Caucasian post-secondary students.

After adjusting for several covariates, racialized students as a whole had 2.43 times the odds of reporting poor general health compared to white Caucasian students. Asian (OR = 2.77; CI = 1.84-4.18; p < 0.05) and South Asian (OR = 2.52; CI = 1.56-4.08; p < 0.05) students were significantly more likely to report poor health compared to white Caucasian students.

The findings call for further attention to the health needs of racialized post-secondary students living in Canada and creating campuses where diverse student populations feel safe and systemically included.