Anti-Black racism continues to undercut public health and pandemic response: A commentary on the mpox response in Canada.

Abstract

This commentary examines how anti-Black racism shaped Canada's public health response to the 2022 mpox outbreak. It explores how racialized and sexualized stigma influenced public discourse and delayed targeted interventions for Black gay, bisexual, and queer men (GBQM). Drawing on critical public health frameworks, we interrogate how colonial narratives framed Blackness as a source of contagion. We also consider how public health institutions were slow to act until mpox appeared in the Global North, reflecting a pattern in global health where outbreaks are not treated as urgent until they affect predominantly white or Western populations. This delay is grounded in a pervasive assumption that infectious disease originates and circulates primarily in the racialized geographies of the Global South. This commentary calls for a transformation of public health infrastructure in Canada to one that centers Black lives in epidemic responses, integrates robust education on Black health through community-engaged expertise, and adopts inclusive, anti-oppressive approaches. In light of Canada's deep ties to global migration and diasporic communities, we underscore the need for timely, globally informed responses to infectious diseases that resist colonial hierarchies which have long treated Black and other racialized lives as less worthy of protection and care.