Grant: Dissemination Events - PA: Health and Health Equity

The intent of this Grant is to build on and enhance research that is currently being supported by a CIHR Operating Grant entitled "Indigenous Knowledge Networks for Infant, Child and Family Health." The five-year Indigenous Knowledge Network project has created a network of Indigenous health stakeholders and researchers who are gathering, synthesizing, and applying locally relevant Indigenous and public health knowledge to culture-based parenting and infant/toddler health promotion programs. One of the activities within the Knowledge Network project has been to conduct an international systematic review of such programs, using realist methods. The team of scholars currently working on the international systematic review has identified a need for community-based expertise and input from those who work with Indigenous parenting programs and infant/toddler health promotion programs. In May 2011, the researchers and stakeholders will meet in Toronto, Canada, to review, amend, and draft policy recommendations regarding the systematic review prior to its public release. One researcher and one front line community health stakeholder from the four international sites (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, including Hawaii) will be in attendance along with researchers and front line community health stakeholders from Canada. The meeting will be set up to encourage a balance of open dialogue and divergent thinking (using brainstorming and Indigenous talking circle methodologies) and facilitated dialogue that will allow the team to synthesize feedback and arrive at recommendations. The proposed meeting is critical, as it will allow Indigenous health stakeholders to reflect on the findings and engage with the researchers towards interpreting the findings and crafting recommendations out of them. This knowledge exchange will ensure that any output from the systematic review is grounded in evidence from the literature and insights from those closest to the work.