• Denise Campbell-Scherer, Yvonne Chiu, Nicole Naadu Ofosu, Thea Luig, Karen Heather Hunter, Badi Jabbour, Sauleha Farooq, Ali Mahdi, Aline Gayawira, Fransiska Awasis, Funke Olokude, Hannah Goa, Hina Syed, Judy Sillito, Lydia Yip, Lyn Belle, Mawien Akot, Monique Nutter, Nadia Farhat, Yan Wang, Niga Jalal, Saida Khalif, Shiva Chapagain, Stephanie Fernandez, Susan Azarcon, and Zhewar Hama.
• Office of Lifelong Learning & the Physician Learning Program, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry (Campbell-Scherer, Hunter, Luig), University of Alberta; Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry (Campbell-Scherer, Ofosu, Jabbour), University of Alberta; Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (Chiu, Mahdi, Gayawira, Awasis, Olokude, Goa, Syed, Sillito, Yip, Belle, Akot, Nutter, Farhat, Wang, Jalal, Khalif, Chapagain, Fernandez, Azarcon, Hama); University of Alberta Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry (Farooq); Alberta Diabetes Institute (Campbell-Scherer), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. dlcampbe@ualberta.ca.
• CMAJ. 2021 Aug 9; 193 (31): E1203-E1212.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated disparities in poverty and illness for people in vulnerable circumstances in ethnocultural communities. We sought to understand the evolving impacts of COVID-19 on ethnocultural communities to inform intersectoral advocacy and community action.MethodsThe Illuminate Project used participatory action research, with cultural health brokers as peer researchers, from Sept. 21 to Dec. 31, 2020, in Edmonton, Alberta. Twenty-one peer researchers collected narratives from members of ethnocultural communities and self-interpreted them as they entered the narratives into the SenseMaker platform, a mixed-method data collection tool. The entire research team analyzed real-time, aggregate, quantitative and qualitative data to identify emerging thematic domains, then visualized these domains with social network analysis.ResultsBrokers serving diverse communities collected 773 narratives. Identified domains illuminate the evolving and entangled impacts of COVID-19 including the following: COVID-19 prevention and management; care of acute, chronic and serious illnesses other than COVID-19; maternal care; mental health and triggers of past trauma; financial insecurity; impact on children and youth and seniors; and legal concerns. We identified that community social capital and cultural brokering are key assets that facilitate access to formal health and social system supports.InterpretationThe Illuminate Project has illustrated the entangled, systemic issues that result in poor health among vulnerable members of ethnocultural communities, and the exacerbating effects of COVID-19, which also increased barriers to mitigation. Cultural brokering and community social capital are key supports for people during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings can inform policy to reduce harm and support community resiliency.© 2021 CMA Joule Inc. or its licensors.

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