Grant: CIHR Gold Leaf Prize for Transformation: Patient Engagement

Since embarking on a doctoral research project at the request of mid-life Mi’kmaq women in Nova Scotia (Grandmothers’ Voices: Mi’kmaq Women and Menopause, 2004), I have fully embraced what has been referred as “patient engagement” in my research activities. Within this context, I have engaged in two-eyed seeing , within a decolonizing and community-based participatory research approach with Aboriginal patients who reflect diverse geographic, cultural, gendered, sexual, and age-related perspectives and experiences. With an underlying goal of health equity for Aboriginal peoples, I also attempt to produce tangible benefits for Aboriginal patients, their families and their communities. My work is consistently proposed and directed by Aboriginal communities or collectives that represent full, equal and active partners in all aspects of the research process and in which Aboriginal patients’ voices and experiences are privileged. I support the unique context within which Aboriginal people engage in research by ensuring flexibility in research designs as well as opportunities for reciprocal and mutually beneficial capacity development as well as compensation for the valuable contributions made by diverse Aboriginal research partners. I am honoured to have played a small role in the creation and continuation of local, regional, national and international networks of researchers, patients and relevant stakeholders. Through these networks, we have facilitated uptake to policy and practice audiences and expanded the avenues through which knowledge developed through research informs health promotion as well as illness prevention, testing, treatment, care and support policies and practice.