'ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM'

CHRISTINE LIN SAYS HER FAMILY FACED CHALLENGES GETTING PROPER CARE AFTER MOVING TO MOUNT ALBERT

Christine Lin was in for a big culture shock when her family

moved to Mount Albert from Scarborough when she was in Grade 8. Going from an area full of visible minorities to a place with very few was a challenge for Lin. "It was a little bit hostile in a sense. You just don't see many people who look like you," she said.

Her family had moved to the area for a bigger, newer house but the challenges for Lin lingered in every setting — and those challenges also faced her parents.

"I struggled to step foot into spaces knowing I would be the ' only one' in the room," she said.

Lin said her father worked long hours and night shifts to support their family. With little time off, it was difficult for him to visit the doctor; as a result, his health quickly declined, she said.

"The fact that he was a non-english speaker also contributed to his inability to access health information and services. I learned that an individual's environment and identity have a great impact on their health," she said. Lin said their family spent several years trying to find a family doctor who spoke Mandarin and when they finally did, the doctor moved shortly afterwards. "We are still on the search for a Mandarin speaking family doctor," she said.

Through these experiences while attending Newmarket High School, Lin became deeply passionate about intersectionality and inequality in health. "Bias and inequity in health care is a very big thing. The quality of care you receive is often dependent on who you look like and where you are from," she said.

Lin has channelled that passion into her studies at Mcmaster University, where she is a health sciences major.

"One of my goals is to to prevent curable illnesses in non-english speaking and marginalized communities by increasing primary care access through multilingual translation services, awareness campaign and community programs," she said.

For example, she said even at places like Markham Stouffville Hospital, people come in with a broken leg and nobody can speak Mandarin. "Having something to translate for people who don't speak English (is important)," she said

A recent study published in the International Journal of Aging and Human Development found that racialized older Canadians were at a health disadvantage.

"It's only when we looked at the intersection of race and immigrant status that we found health disparities," said co-author Prof. Usha George, academic director at the Toronto Metropolitan (formerly Ryerson) Centre for Immigration and Settlement.

White Canadian-born individuals and white immigrants were 35 per cent more likely to report being in good health compared to racialized immigrants.

"These findings indicate that racialized immigrants in Canada are at a health disadvantage," George said. Experiences of discrimination may contribute to these health differences. Racialized Canadians were significantly more likely to report they had experienced at least one incident of discrimination in the previous five years compared to non-racialized Canadians (32 per cent vs. 19 per cent, respectively).

In a similar vein, an Ontario government report found that between June 26, 2020 and April 21, 2021, COVID-19'S impact had been highly racialized. The analysis found that racialized populations had 1.2 to 7.1 times higher rates of COVID-19 infection compared with white Ontarians.

The report said that racialized and inequitable health outcomes generated by the pandemic are not products of the pandemic alone, but also the result of systems that marginalize racialized communities.

Lin recently won the CIBC Future Heroes Bursary to pursue her ambition of becoming a health-care professional.

She said she feels very privileged to have received the bursary. "It has allowed me to focus solely on my studies and not have to worry about working and paying off tuition. It lessened the financial burden for me and my family," she said.