The national and global impact of systemic and structural violence on the effective prevention, treatment and management of COVID-19 in the African/Black population: Protocol for a Scoping Review (Preprint)

Abstract

As the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to ravage the globe and cases exploded rapidly, countries have been presented with challenging policy choices to contain the spread of COVID-19. In Canada, and globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has added a new stratum to the debate concerning the root causes of global and racial health inequities and disparities. Individuals who exist as targets of systemic inequities are not only more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, but they are also more likely to bear the greatest extent of the subsequent economic pandemic. Therefore, data collection that specifically focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives and health of African/Black communities nationally and globally is needed to develop intersectional, culturally-relative, anti-racist/anti-oppression, empowerment-centered interventions and social policies to increase more efficient ways to support heterogeneous African/Black communities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The primary objective of this review is to investigate the impact and management of COVID-19 on African/Black individuals and communities in Canada and globally and understand how anti-black racism and intersectional violence impact the health of African/Black communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the study aims to explore scholarship pertaining to the impact of the COVID-19 on Black communities in the global context in multiple languages. We seek to determine how Black communities are impacted, so far as structural violence and systematic racism, health outcomes, and the ways in which attempts have been made to mitigate or manage the consequences of the pandemic and other injurious agents.

A systematic search of published literature of quantitative and qualitative studies published on COVID-19 in Canada and globally will be conducted in Ovid Medline, Ovid EMBASE, EBSCO Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, the Cochrane Library, Ovid PsychInfo, Ovid CAB Abstracts, Scopus, Web of Science, and Global Index Medicus. To be included in the review, studies should include data on COVID-19 in relation to African/Black individuals, population and communities in Canada and globally. The studies must discuss racism, oppression, anti-oppression, or systemic/structural violence and be published in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The findings will be reported according to PRISMA-ScR.

Screening of title and abstracts from articles included from the aforementioned electronic databases concluded in 2022. Full-text screening and extraction is forthcoming given the large amount of literature remaining that appear to meet inclusionary criteria. Findings from the scoping review are expected to be published for peer review in Autumn 2022.

This review will collect important data and evidence on African/Black communities related to COVID-19. Moreover, this review could help identified existing gaps in COVID-19 management in the African/Black communities and inform future research. Furthermore, it could also be used in decision-making for health policy and promotion and can influence the services provided by healthcare facilities and community organizations around the globe.

Open Science Framework (OSF). Submitted on November 1st, 2021