Grant: Dissemination Events - PA: First Nations, Inuit and Métis Health

Indigenous populations around the world struggle with considerable health inequities compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts. These populations include the First Nations, Inuit and Métis, recognized in the Constitution Act of Canada 1982, Section 35. Although efforts to mitigate Indigenous health disparities and improve the quality of Indigenous health services are widespread, the cultural appropriateness of these programs varies. Indigenous cultural safety in health care is a concept that acknowledges historic tensions between Western and Indigenous cultures and teaches practitioners to respectfully integrate the culture and health beliefs of an Indigenous individual/community into health interventions. A group of Aboriginal scholars from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States propose that a set of international core competencies for Indigenous public health be developed to promote the widespread practice of Indigenous cultural safety. These scholars are part of an established collaboration called CIPHER: Competencies for Indigenous Public Health, Evaluation and Research. The core competencies would be a set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that a culturally safe public health professional must master. To assess current cultural safety practices, an environmental scan of the public health education programs, Indigenous health services and cultural safety initiatives in each of the CIPHER countries was conducted. The findings of the scan are detailed in a comprehensive report, which includes recommendations for the CIPHER collaboration. The purpose of the proposed dissemination activities is to inform Indigenous public health stakeholders and CIPHER scholars of the environmental scan findings. The proposed knowledge translation meeting for CIPHER scholars and stakeholder representatives is expected to produce a detailed research agenda and initiatives for designing and implementing effective core competencies for Indigenous public health.