Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Community engagement is now a cornerstone of research involving Indigenous peoples in Canada, yet it is often only adults who are truly engaged in such projects. Participation of youth has tended to be limited to their role as research subjects rather than collaborators. We conducted a collaborative project with youth at the request of the planning committee of a community-driven research project focused on reducing the burden of H. pylori infection in Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories. We will present highlights of the significant contributions that youth made to research within their community, and address the crucial question of who benefits from such projects. We will discuss the implications of reorienting our research agenda in a manner that prioritizes youth engagement and capacity building to produce direct and sustained benefits for youth, while also yielding meaningful data for addressing the goals of a community-driven health research project.