Grant: Planning Grants

Culturally safe practices for the promotion of health and well-being, and illness prevention, are especially important in northern British Columbia, where rural, remote and First Nations communities experience a disproportionate burden of ill-health compared to the rest of the province. Based on past experience of community-based and First Nations oriented work, our research team has identified storytelling as an increasingly important means to understand and respond to the health issues faced in northern BC communities. Our proposal seeks to bring communities, storytellers, researchers and health professionals together to explore the role of narrative and new media approaches to storytelling and the use of these approaches to inform culturally safe research, education and health promotion tools well-suited to respond to the particular health challenges of northern and First Nations communities in BC. The foundation for this project is a strong team of established researchers and a history of successful research collaborations with communities and health authorities in northern BC (including the newly established First Nations Health Authority and the Northern Health Authority). Building from this base, the proposed project aims to: 1) examine the potential for narrative, story and digital storytelling to contribute to addressing health priorities for communities and health authorities in northern BC; 2) identify avenues for partnership and collaborative action for using these approaches; and 3) design a preliminary research strategy that will provide the foundation for future research in this field. We consider this project a timely opportunity to strengthen understanding of the cultural relevance and potential use and impact of using narrative, storytelling, and place-based strategies to address health disparities in northern and First Nations communities, and to use this understanding to enhance health promotion and health equity in northern BC.