Grant: Indigenous Gender and Wellness Development Grants

Standard convention holds that a person has aged when they reach a fixed "age" (e.g. 65). However, Indigenous Peoples face complex health issues steeped in colonial trauma that impact the experience of aging. This includes aging earlier than the general population and facing a greater number of co-morbidities as they age. Across the Western world, People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) have access to effective, well-tolerated HIV treatment, and strategies have shifted towards HIV treatment and management and staying healthy with HIV. However, these same advances can't be said to be occurring for Indigenous PLWH across Canada, where community level testing, treatment, and access are limited and inconsistent. There are significant knowledge gaps and little evidence of what wellness means to Indigenous Peoples living with HIV/AIDS (IPLWH). This gap is all the more significant when trying to determine what wellness and healthy aging means to IPLWH as they become older adults. The main goal of this proposed project is to hold a two-day meeting to bring together Indigenous communities, organisations, IPLWH, and researchers for exploratory discussions and iterative research development around the creation of a community-based research programme grounded in Indigenous knowledges, methods, and the land, so as to ascertain (1) a clear definition of what wellness and healthy aging means and (2) its practical application for Indigenous Peoples living with HIV/AIDS, including how these may differ for Indigenous women, men and non-binary/2SLGBTTIQ+ people. This planning meeting will be essential to kick-starting national efforts to conduct research in aging and wellness among IPLWH.