Grant: Team Grant: Diabetes Prevention and Treatment in Indigenous Communities: R&W

Diabetes is strongly influenced by social and cultural contexts. For Indigenous Peoples, ongoing dynamics of colonization perpetuate social inequities that then influence diabetes through interdependent pathways that include socio-economic resource disparities, social and societal adverse life experiences and systemic healthcare violence. For the Indigenous person with diabetes, these complex adverse social realities add overwhelming burden, influencing the distress of diabetes and ultimately outcomes. Indigenous people with diabetes, their diabetes care providers and those policy makers who lead diabetes health service planning all make decisions on diabetes care, striving for best outcomes. Each make decisions based on mental models of diabetes and diabetes care which are influenced by experiences of the social and cultural contexts in which diabetes and diabetes care exist. In 'striving for best outcomes', each makes critical diabetes care innovations that facilitate resilience and being well with diabetes. For this project, we seek to gain knowledge of mental models and decision making strategies for wellness and resilience with diabetes. We intend to do so through applying cognitive research methods, Cognitive Task Analysis, used for exploring how experts in professional domains make critical decisions. The research method will be grounded in Indigenous cultural Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing to gain deep knowledge of protective and therapeutic approaches in diabetes prevention and management. Knowledge from this research will be used to redesign behavioral health approaches that will have potential to innovate models of diabetes clinical care, patient support, patient education and patient self-management.