Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The Kahnawake School Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) was created in 1994 by a team of Kahnawake community members (a Mohawk community located near Montreal) and university academics to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent Type 2 diabetes in Kahnawake. Since the start of KSDPP, many studies have attempted to evaluate the effects of the project on diabetes and on the lifestyles of the targeted population. These evaluations have shown modest improvements on physical activity, diet, weight and diabetes. In fact, most health promotion projects are complex and do not always translate directly into lifestyle and health improvement. Some academics think that health promotion projects that are developed in and with communities have to first generate social mobilization processes similar to a social movement in order to succeed in changing the behaviors of the people. My hypothesis is that KSDPP has evolved into a community mobilizing movement, which is a first step in the path leading toward health improvement. My project, which has been conducted in full partnership with the community, aims to build on a social movement theory framework to explore and understand KSDPP's outcomes and processes at a community-level. Social movement theory examines the conditions under which collective action emerges and develops to promote social change around an issue. In order to achieve this, I have conducted 5 discussion groups with key stakeholders of the project and analyzed relevant organizational documentation. This study is important because it encourages reflection on health promotion effects in terms of community mobilization. Results will pinpoint key elements (collective action frame, collective action strategy, organizations, resources, opportunities) that could be used to further mobilize the actors and the community toward diabetes prevention. Knowledge emerging from these results will be relevant to other health promotion projects as well as their evaluations.