Arnel Borras
Arnel M. Borras, RN, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Rankin School of Nursing at St. Francis Xavier University. His path to academia began as a factory worker after immigrating to Canada and continued through practice as a personal support worker, registered practical nurse, and registered nurse. These experiences continue to inform his scholarship, teaching, and service.
Dr. Borras holds a PhD in Health, specializing in Health Policy and Equity, from York University. His research examines how social, political, economic, cultural, and institutional arrangements shape health and health care inequities, with particular attention to the roles of power, institutions, and public policy in producing and transforming them.
His scholarship bridges nursing, health policy, and interdisciplinary health research to advance structural understandings of health inequities and contribute to health equity, health justice, and systems change.
Research Focus
Dr. Borras’s research program is grounded in the political economy of health inequities and encompasses five integrated areas of scholarship:
- Political Economy of Health Inequities
- Housing Insecurity, Homelessness, and Health
- Food Systems, Food Justice, and Food Sovereignty
- Nursing, Health Equity, and Health Justice
- Health Policy, Governance, and Collective Action
Borras, A. M. (2026). Power, politics, and policy in the making of health inequities: An empirical study of equity-oriented policy actors in Canada. International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27551938261467630
Borras, A. M. (2025). Health and health care inequities: A critical political economy perspective. Fernwood Publishing.
Borras, A. M. (2025). The political economy of racialized health inequities: A panoramic view. In T. Bryant (Ed.), Handbook on the social determinants of health (pp. 190–203). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Borras, A. M. (2025). Health inequalities and capitalism in Canada. The Bullet. https://socialistproject.ca/2025/07/health-nequalities-capitalism-canada/
Borras, A. M. (2024). A critical political economy of health inequities. In D. Primrose, R. Loeppky, & R. Chang (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of the political economy of health and healthcare (pp. 119–130). Routledge.
Borras, A.M., Komakech, M., & Raphael, D. (2023). Policy-related homelessness discourses in Canada: Implications for nursing research, practice, and advocacy. Witness: The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse, 5(1), 31–54. https://witness.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default/article/view/145
Borras, A.M. (2023). The challenge of exposing and ending health inequalities through social and policy change: Canadian experiences. International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services, 53(2), 130–145. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27551938221148376
Borras, A.M. (2022). Tackling health inequalities through public policy action: Insights from Canadian policy academics, activists, and advocates [Doctoral dissertation, School of Health Policy and Management, York University].
https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/da139d31-0f00-4411-a797-af45e397260b
Borras, A.M. (2021). Toward an intersectional approach to health justice. International Journal of Health Services, 51(2), 206–225. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020731420981857
Borras, A. M., & Mohamed, F. A. (2020). Health inequities and the shifting paradigms of food security, food insecurity, and food sovereignty. International Journal of Health Services, 50(3), 299– 313. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020731420913184
Scholarly Profiles
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2237-0980
Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ntjrFtEAAAAJ&hl=en
ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arnel-Borras
