New Framework Guides BORN’s Approach to Black Health Equity

Black birthing people and families continue to experience inequities in maternal, perinatal and infant health outcomes. Understanding these inequities—and using data responsibly to help address them—is an important part of advancing health equity.

A recent BORN Ontario webinar, Advancing Black Maternal and Perinatal Health in Ontario, explores how sociodemographic (SD) and social determinants of health (SDOH), as well as race-based data collected through the BORN Registry, can help us better understand inequities affecting Black communities.

The 60-minute webinar examines the evidence and limitations of race-based data, including important considerations for interpreting and using this information. It also explores the use of race in prenatal screening algorithms and the governance considerations that must guide the collection, analysis and application of equity-relevant data.

BORN Ontario’s Black Health Equity Framework

A key focus of the webinar is BORN’s newly launched Black Health Equity Framework, which provides a community-informed approach to how BORN collects, analyzes, interprets, shares and uses race-based and equity-relevant data.

The framework recognizes that data collection alone does not create equity. Data must be used in ways that improve how health systems learn, make decisions, share responsibility and respond to inequities.

The framework aims to advance Black health equity and address anti-Black racism by embedding culturally safe and anti-racist practices across BORN’s governance, data collection and sharing activities. It also seeks to strengthen understanding of Black populations and support meaningful improvements in care experiences and health outcomes.

At its core, the framework is guided by three goals:

• Contribute to equity rather than harm

• Build trust and shared stewardship with Black communities

• Support meaningful improvements in care experiences and outcomes for Black birthing people and their families

Four pillars for equity-driven data use

BORN’s Black Health Equity Framework is organized around four interconnected pillars that span the full data journey:

1. Protect – With Community

2. Learn – With Context

3. Reconnect – With Care

4. Act – With Purpose

Together, these pillars form a continuous equity cycle. Protective data practices enable meaningful learning; learning informs transparent and respectful reconnection with communities; reconnection grounds purposeful action; and action helps reshape how data are collected, interpreted, shared and used over time.

This approach places ethical stewardship, community partnership and shared accountability at the centre of BORN’s work.

Additional Resources

• Voices Unheard: Canada’s First National Health Survey of Black Women and Girls

• Collecting Race for MMS: A Resource for Health-Care Providers
• Participant Manual - We Ask Because We Care: Collecting Patient Demographic Data

• Supporting Better Health Outcomes for Black Birthing People, Infants, and Families

• Wellesley Institute: Engagement, Governance, Access and Protection (EGAP) Implementation Guide