Q&A: Hamilton author on the 'shocking' lack of understanding about the impacts of racism on mental health

McMaster professor Ingrid Waldron has had quite the journey over the past several years.

Her book on environmental racism in Nova Scotia, There's Something in the Water, became a documentary co-directed by Canadian actor Elliot Page, alongside Ian Daniel. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. 

The spotlight helped put Waldron at the forefront of discussions in Canada on environmental racism and the author's work was behind the push for a new law requiring the Canadian government to track how racialized groups have been disproportionately affected by polluting industries.

Waldron left Dalhousie University to return home to Ontario in 2021. She is now the HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program at McMaster University, where she continues to work on issues of environmental justice but has also returned to what she calls her "first love" — the study of mental health. 

Waldron recently completed a study on the mental health issues facing Black youth in Hamilton and the challenges they have accessing services.

That work, along with previous studies involving the experiences of Black youth and women in Halifax and a long career in this field, informs her new book, From the Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter: Tracing the Impacts of Racial Trauma in Black Communities from the Colonial Era to the Present.

The book launches Feb. 12 at a McMaster University space in Hamilton's Jackson Square.

In advance of the launch, CBC Hamilton executive producer Eva Salinas spoke with Waldron about the book, the need for change in the health-care system and how Canadians, including health-care practitioners and researchers, understand how racism impacts mental health. 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Did the move to McMaster inspire the book or did your interest in the topic draw you to McMaster? 

Actually, neither one.

People see me so much in this space of environmental racism, but before I encountered that topic, I was fully engaged in mental illness, the impact of racism on mental illness in Black communities, and my PhD thesis back in 2002 [at OISE at the University of Toronto] was on the mental health impacts of racism on Black women.

So, I thought that that's what I would continue to do.

It was only in 2008, as I mentioned in my book There's Something In The Water, that an environmental activist came to me when I was at Dalhousie, asking me to do a project on environmental racism. So, it wasn't something I knew anything about. It was new to me.