Ismalia De Sousa

Growing evidence demonstrates the impact of health disparities on stroke care and outcomes. Although reviews have examined disparities related to sex and gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status and rural–urban residence, most have not accounted for the influence of multiple intersecting social identities or positions. This critical integrative review used a modified integrative review methodology with an intersectionality approach. We reported bibliographic trends and generated Upset Plots to analyze intersections among categories of social identity/position. Analysis was iterative to identify patterns and relationships between and within categories. We included 471 records and 392 conference proceedings published over 34 years (1991–2024). Most studies (60.1%) were from the United States and included only individuals with ischemic stroke (48.8%). A total of 59.9% reported on race and/or ethnicity disparities, followed by 43.7% on sex and (cis)gender. Studies focused on geography, migrants, transients and refugees, individuals experiencing homelessness, sexual and gender minorities, and individuals with substance use disorder were lacking. The largest set of studies reporting on at least 2 categories was the combination of race and/or ethnicity, sex and cis(gender) and age. Only 68 (14.9%) quantitative studies conducted intersectional analyses, with the largest intersection being race and/or ethnicity with sex and (cis)gender. Studies often used a unidimensional approach to social identities or positions and focused on identifying and quantifying disparities, with minimal consideration of their intersecting nature and explanatory drivers. Studies on how disparities are experienced by individuals living with stroke were rare. To advance health equity in stroke care and research, studies using an intersectionality framework are needed.

As a “foursome” of nursing history students and scholars, upcoming, junior, and seasoned, we presented a panel on new work and possibilities related to histories of Blackness and Black nurses in Canadian nursing history. Our presentation was the 2023 keynote Hannah Panel Presentation for the joint Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (CSHM-SCHM) and the Canadian Association for the History of Nursing (CAHN-ACHN) conference. Reflecting and expanding our perspectives, we share the relevance and significance of engaging with histories of Canadian Blackness and (in)visibility of Blackness in nursing history. This paper considers the overarching question of how does engaging with histories of Canadian Blackness serve as an anti-racist strategy when examining, analyzing and understanding the history of nursing and health care? A core tenant of this work aims at acknowledging how institutional relationships of power are reproduced within scholarship unless there is space for radical re-imaginations. The disruption to power is achieved by exploring the connections between nursing and history from the perspective of Black nurses’ history or Black feminist thought. We also disrupt power by our form, in challenging expectations of scientific inquiry as the only format of valid knowledge production within the discipline. Possibilities of arts-based methodology as a site for democratization in nursing knowledge are evoked through the metaphoric language (water, fire, air and earth) interwoven within the text. We highlight how each of us engages with nursing history, further complicating previous narratives of our collective Canadian past. In publishing our thoughts on historical inquiry in a nursing journal, we hope to provoke more curiosity and interest in history within our discipline as a site for liberation!

Knowledge translation (KT) is the exchange between knowledge producers and users to understand, synthesize, share, and apply evidence to accelerate the benefits of research to improve health and health systems. Knowledge translation practice (activities/strategies to move evidence into practice) and KT science (study of the methodology and approaches to promote the uptake of research) benefit from the use of conceptual thinking, the meaningful inclusion of patients, and the application of intersectionality. In spite of multiple barriers, there are opportunities to develop strong partnerships and evidence to drive an impactful research agenda and increase the uptake of cardiovascular research.

Drawing from a keynote panel held at the hybrid 25th International Philosophy of Nursing Conference, this discussion paper examines the question of epistemic silence in nursing from five different perspectives. Contributors include US‐based scholar Claire Valderama‐Wallace, who meditated on ecosystems of settler colonial logics of nursing; American scholar Lucinda Canty discussed the epistemic silencing of nurses of colour; Canadian scholar Amelie Perron interrogated the use of disobedience and parrhesia in and for nursing; Canada‐based scholar Ismalia De Sousa considered what nursing protects in its silences; and Australian scholar Janice Gullick spoke to trans invisibility in nursing.

Black nurses are at the margins of the annals of history and there is a dearth of historical accounts of their work. Drawing on our historical research about Black nurses in British Columbia (Canada) between 1845 and 1910, we point to the complexity of Black women's lives and argue that Black nurses disrupted the conceptualization of Blackness and Black womanhood of the time. We demonstrate the vital contributions of Black nurses to the health of communities and add to existing scholarship that redefines the nursing narrative: one in which white nurses are not the start and end point of history.