Decolonising Public Health through Praxis

​This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of UK African Diaspora health seekers and their sustained health inequalities in the health market. It translates their often-silenced voices into a decolonial praxis, where their experiences illuminate the hidden factors that have blighted change in health outcomes for these communities. The book excavates and breaks down the nature of these hidden factors, as historical patterns of behaviour that comprise whiteness over the longue durée. Using the lenses of decolonial and critical race studies, the book places whiteness within an ethical and moral framework in order to examine the hidden factors behind health inequalities.  The book also looks at intersectionality and discusses whether it is actually fit for purpose as an analytical framework for discussing the health seeking behaviours of both Black men and Black women in relation to their unequal access to the health market.

“A much needed and thought provoking work combining intellectual rigour with contemporary lived experience of Black people of the National Health Service. The book convincingly argues - using theory and case studies, conversations and testimonies of community experts through lived experience - that the “stressors of racism and its epigenetic effects are better able to explain why Black people are more at risk of higher rates of morbidity and mortality across many health conditions, including COVID-19”. Clennon and Bruce’s book makes a unique and much needed contribution to a body of knowledge on the social, spiritual and cultural determinants of health access and outcomes for people of African and Caribbean descent. They go further to evidence the key roles that community led initiatives in faith, education, research and health advocacy in Greater Manchester can and are having on the better health and wellbeing of the African and Caribbean communities. A must-read book for health policy and professionals along with Black community health advocates who are determined to equalise health outcomes for all.” (Patricia Lamour MBE, Global Education & Workforce Specialist, the Aspire Education Group, UK)

“Faye Bruce and Ornette D. Clennon have made a sterling contribution to decolonial theory and public health. For far too long, racism and anti-Blackness have remained not only unacknowledged, but a deliberately ignored social determinant of health among U.K. health organizations, universities, and policymakers. For centuries, U.K. public health theory has continued to disown its racist presumptions of populations and the pathologies it has imposed on Black people. Decolonising Public Health Through Praxis: The Impact on Black Health in the UK is not only a corrective, but an evidence-based resource that can move public health programs from the empty rhetoric of diversity to the actual practice of decolonization.” (Prof. Tommy J. Curry, Ph.D., MPH,Personal Chair of Africana Philosophy & Black Male Studies,Department of Philosophy,The University of Edinburgh, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences,UK)

Faye Bruce is Chair of the Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN) and a Senior Lecturer and Nursing MPH Global Public Health lead, Co-Investigator Nursing and Racism, Non-Executive Director Northern Care Alliance, UK.

Ornette D Clennon is Director of Research and Head of MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute), Manchester, UK. Ornette is also Visiting Professor, UFAM (Federal University of the Amazon).