Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Hepatitis C (HCV) is the first curable chronic viral infection. Treatment is effective and prevents progressive liver disease and liver cancer, and yet it remains a public health threat leading to more life years lost than any other infectious disease in Ontario. Persistent inequity and gaps in care illustrate the continued disassociation between the ongoing burden of colonial harms and a disparaging lack of decolonized, culturally-connected, wellness-focused, land-based, and self-governance shaped care approaches. This research aims to amplify personal experience of structural and social barriers in HCV care by conducting conversational interview visits with First Nation community members and healthcare providers in urban and rural settings across Ontario. This relational approach seeks to increase evidence-based understanding of the influence of determinants of health on experiences of hesitancy testing or initiating HCV care shown in previous First Nation data. This Indigenous-led relational research focuses on partnerships, collaborations, knowledge user insights and reciprocity to consider upstream sources of disparate HCV experiences. By listening to and synthesizing these living experiences, this research fosters transdisciplinary collaboration between participants, researchers and knowledge users while facilitating increased capacity to support cultural relevance, advocacy and implementation strategies as well as increased access and equity for relevant solutions. Collaborating on this synthesis to co-create a liver bundle comprised of culturally connected awareness resources designed with Indigenous community members for dissemination in community settings as health education tools. This research thus frames HCV care within culturally connected and relational wellness contexts to positively impact access and equity through co-creation, building local capacity and advocating for policy shifts supporting care options for First Nations People.