Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Indigenous populations in Canada and abroad often suffer from a higher burden of disease than corresponding non-Indigenous ones. The causes are complex and include several inequities, notably related to social determinants of health. To mitigate such health iniquities and to promote wellness, access to quality primary care, both geographically and culturally, becomes an essential factor. Yet, even when services are available locally, there often exists a cultural disconnect between Indigenous ways of healing and contemporary health care. In a project seeking to elaborate a model to promote access to and recognition of traditional medicines, Indigenous people expressed some important requests. One example is the consult, consent, consensus ethical process that can be linked with qualitative transparency. Another is to adopt a community-based participatory research approach where Indigenous individuals act as co-researchers. Researchers coming from a different background than Indigenous communities indeed represents a challenge. In our project, non-Indigenous researchers will thus stay with a family to learn community lifestyle and values. Thereafter, the non-Indigenous researcher will be invited to collect data with Indigenous co-researchers. Every request made by communities was intended to build trust and respect among all stakeholders. Every step of the project will be designed and created according to the needs and desires of the community but also in a way to enable the generated knowledge to all partners. This will achieve cultural competency for non-Indigenous researchers and build research capacity for Indigenous researchers. Intercultural challenges will remain a major issue but researcher awareness can mitigate this.