Why do 3 major diseases disproportionately impact Black Canadians? New genome project aims to find out
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In her 10 years as a health-care administrator, Cheryl Prescod has seen firsthand how Black Canadians can feel left behind by the comprehensive approach sometimes taken by the country’s health-care system.
As Executive Director at Black Creek Community Health CenterE in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood. Prescod serves a diverse clientele including a large ratio of black and racial person – People who say it can be difficult to get health care that makes them feel safe and culturally respectful.
Black people are disproportionately affected by certain diseases, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and is known as an aggressive form of breast cancer triple negative. Starting February 1, researchers from Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia are launching zencare project To map the genomes of more than 10,000 Black Canadians with these three diseases, as well as those who have no underlying medical conditions.
Project leader – funded by Genome Canada — The hope is that their findings will help inform where treatment and preventive care can be targeted, as well as achieve more equitable, anti-racist health outcomes.
Researchers have launched a project to collect samples from 10,000 Black Canadians to study their genomes, with the goal of better understanding why some people get certain medical disorders.
“If we’re not there, we’re not going to be counted,” Prescod said. “We will not be involved in finding solutions.”
Prescod estimates that less than five percent Genetic studies around the world have included data from Black people, meaning the findings of those studies may not apply to them.
Prescod hopes the research results will allow him to help his patients at Black Creek better manage their conditions.
According to Dr. Upton Allen, the project’s administrative head, the ultimate goal of GenCare is to take a patient’s genetic makeup and other factors into account during diagnosis and treatment – a practice known as precision medicine.
“This may help us better understand w“Some people have these disorders, why some people have them more severely than others,” Allen said. “It may also help us design better treatments that are more targeted.”
overcoming distrust
Allen says researchers involved with the project will have to overcome a long history of discrimination against black people that has fostered their distrust of medical institutions.
And that makes it difficult to recruit into the project they say requires thousands of participants.
“This is the only project of its kind that focuses on black people in Canada,” said Allen, who is also chief of infectious diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and a professionalProfessor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto.
Alan too participation With Black Creek Community Health Center during COVID-19 pandemic, When some members of black communities expressed Hesitation about vaccine and did not trust the health care system due to systemic discrimination.
“A lot of clients have experienced bias and prejudice in the past and they carry that with them,” said Evan Ho, a diabetes educator and registered dietitian at the health center.
For example, he said, some people believe that diabetes is entirely the result of lifestyle choices.
“The bias may be, ‘Oh, that person is not living a healthy lifestyle, they’re not willing to change,'” Ho said.
In fact, he says, there are many underlying factors that are beyond a person’s control — like a lack of stable housing or food insecurity — that can contribute to negative health outcomes.
A solution for a faulty database
Dr. Gavin Audet, a professor of cardiology at the University of Alberta, who is not involved in GenCare, called it an important initiative to better predict the disease and improve diagnosis and treatment.
“Often, when we look at patients from black or indigenous backgrounds, the genetic testing results are negative,” he said, noting that this is usually not the case for patients from Caucasian backgrounds.
They say this is partly because the genomic databases they are using for comparison are imprecise because they do not have enough data on racialized people.
“It’s not perfect, it’s lacking.”
Research shows that Black Canadians are more likely to be diagnosed with certain conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, but that demographic has been left out of significant research. A new genome project is addressing this gap.
To get that data, researchers know they need to build trust with people and avoid persistent pitfalls. To do this, they say they will anonymize the participants’ DNA data, keep it securely in Canada and share information obtained as a result of the study with community members at events such as town halls.
Prescod RecallEd worked with Allen during the COVID pandemic to turn to community ambassadors who live in several high-rise buildings in neighborhoods near the clinic to offer outreach, spreading the word.Delivered e-health care services and information, which helped build trust.
“They really get out into the community, they talk to people to help them understand the purpose of the research and why they should participate,” Prescod said.
Allen says participants will be recruited from community health centers like Black Creek, as well as doctors’ offices and hospitals.S. The next part of the project will be expanded to include children.
Although Prescod knows that the potential solutions the GenCare project could provide are unlikely to benefit participants immediately, she says they could ultimately help their children and grandchildren.
He said, “I wish this could have happened earlier… because it will affect me too.” “But it’s never too late.”
