Equity Science Lab — Active Project
A research partnership following the leadership and wisdom of Grandmothers — exploring how health data can support justice for mothers, their families, and their communities.
The Mothering Co/Lab · Equity Science Lab · 2025 · equityscience.caThe Mothering Co/Lab is a research partnership between the Grandmothers of the seven Interior Region Nations, the BC First Nations Data Governance Initiative, Perinatal Services of BC, Interior Health, and the Co/Lab.
Together, we explored how health data can support justice for mothers, their families, and their communities — especially in situations where drugs or alcohol are used before, during, or after pregnancy.
Rather than focusing on individuals or tracking personal behaviour, our goal has always been to build data processes and tools for monitoring systems. By doing this, we can better understand what supports are needed — and strengthen those supports — to help keep families together.
The Co/Lab is the first population health observatory of its kind to bring together community-led processes alongside formalized monitoring and surveillance for action- and equity-oriented data.
Through the first systematic application of the Grandmother Perspective, the Mothering Co/Lab partnership extended the Co/Lab's equity-oriented framework for substance use monitoring to the context of perinatal substance use — with distinct attention to anti-colonial and anti-racist approaches to data disaggregation.
The Grandmothers' Perspective framework from the BC Human Rights Commissioner (Disaggregated Demographic Data Collection in British Columbia: The Grandmother Perspective) — co-created by Lead Grandmother Gwen Phillips — has guided our work from the beginning. Each year of this three-year project has focused on one aspect: purpose, process, and tool.
— The Mothering Co/Lab · 2025Promoting justice for mothers, their families, and communities
The Mothering Co/Lab · 2025Each year of the Mothering Co/Lab was shaped by a Grandmothers' Gathering — a space where matriarchal wisdom led, and research followed. Each gathering focused on one dimension of the Grandmothers' Perspective framework.
With 17 Grandmothers gathered in ʔaq̓am (Cranbrook, BC) on Ktunaxa territory, we affirmed that collecting data about substance use and pregnancy should be for the purpose of keeping families together. We established that shared, clear definitions and understandings are needed as a starting point for all that follows.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2023With 27 Grandmothers gathered in Williams Lake First Nation, we identified that data processes must include: reviving traditional ways of knowing and doing; respecting local protocols within collective action; honouring family and kinship; and committing to accountability and access.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2024With 44 Grandmothers gathered on Syilx Nation territory in Kelowna, we asked: How can we collect data that monitors systems — not people — to help keep families together? This gathering sparked the Mothering Co/Lab Toolkit: seeds for future data processes that shift our collective gaze onto systems, rather than the people they serve.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2025Four interconnected tools — grounded in three years of Grandmothers' wisdom — developed to monitor systems, not people.
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Reimagining data rights through an Indigenous lens — centring matriarchal values and collective rights alongside individual rights, guided by the concept of rematriation.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2025Mapping the overlapping governance bodies, rights holders, laws, and stewardship agreements connected to perinatal substance use data in the Interior Region.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2025Building tools to name double standards in care systems and hold institutions accountable — creating space for communities to speak freely without fear.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2025Adapting Social Return on Investment to make visible the uncompensated contributions of Grandmothers and kinship caregivers — and the inequities they face.
Grandmothers' Handbook · 2025Over three years, one message was clear: to answer our research question, we needed to rethink what data systems are for and how they work. Our conversations continually circled around four interconnected ideas.
These concepts grounded our conversations across all three gatherings as we worked together to imagine data as a tool for justice and family wellbeing — and to build systems that monitor themselves, not the people they serve.
The Mothering Co/Lab · 2025What individuals, families, and communities are entitled to — including collective rights held by Nations and kinship networks.
What we are expected to do to protect those rights — for ourselves, each other, and future generations.
The commitments and duties we formally hold as individuals, Nations, or systems — that must be honoured and visible.
How we make sure rights, responsibilities, and obligations are truly being met — and how fulfillment or failure is seen, addressed, and repaired.
Community Report · 2024
Edet, C., Knox, L., Burd, L., & Shahram, S. (2024). Equity-Oriented Reporting of Population-Level Data. The Mothering Co/Lab, University of British Columbia: Syilx Territory Kelowna, BC, Canada.
Read the Publication →The Mothering Co/Lab's three-year journey has concluded, but the work continues. If this research resonates with you — or if you're interested in building on these findings — we'd love to connect.