Carolina Lavin Venegas, a Research Coordinator at BORN, recently participated in a 13-week Knowledge-to-Equity-Action course at the Equity Science Lab at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Partnering with the Mothering Co/Lab in BC, the team explored considerations of equity within population reports. Guided by the Systematic Equity-Action Analysis and the Grandmother Perspective frameworks, their work centered on developing recommendations aimed at promoting equity and justice through how data is reported.

The team conducted a broad search and compiled a list of recommendations on how to report data in a way that advances equity and justice. Recommendations were structured into four main themes:

1. Building partnerships;
2. Multimodal data collection, interpretation and contextualization of data;
3. Importance of language, empowering and providing options;
4. Transparency and action.

Their findings underscored that meaningful progress towards equity in research demands collaborative efforts and decisive action.

Carolina says the experience strengthened her commitment to advancing equity in research and knowledge translation:

"By applying the insights gained, I strive to contribute to the transformation of research practices, aimed at fostering a more equitable approach in our research endeavors, particularly in how we collect and report data in a safe way. This includes recognizing and honouring other ways of knowing and of disseminating findings, advocating for more qualitative studies to complement our quantitative studies, and ensuring that the way we collect and report data not only reflects, but actively promotes equity and justice. Moving forward, I plan to apply this ‘upgraded’ equity lens in the research I help coordinate at BORN. I hope to continue learning and sharing my learnings with everyone at BORN. "