Racism in Inuit experiences in healthcare: findings from an environmental scan

While the category of "race" has no scientific foundation, race and subsequent racism continue to be determinants of access to health for Indigenous communities globally, including for Inuit in Canada. This scan raised concerns from community members voicing racial inequities in healthcare. The aim of this review was to scan Canadian Inuit experiences of racism in healthcare. To date, no such work has been done, and contemporary Inuit experiences of racism in the healthcare context have not been systematically documented. We hope that this review will serve as a foundation for scholars, policy makers and/or Inuit-community-based organisations to engage with this issue further. We conducted an environmental scan from 2000 to 2024 of peer-reviewed and grey literature to explore Canadian Inuit experiences of racism in healthcare. Our scan identified 16 sources. We analysed sources using the following: systemic or interpersonal racism, and then distinguishing if racism was explicitly mentioned or inferred by the authors. We found medical evacuation, women's health issues, cancer care and postoperative outcomes to be places where racism in healthcare has been documented. Overall, we hope that this review draws much-needed attention to this issue and contributes to the imagination of a new way of practice.