Grant: Operating Grant - Aboriginal Health Intervention - full application

Drug addiction among Indigenous peoples is a serious health concern in Canada. Building on our core community-based research team's history of collaborative work, the aim of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of First Nations culture as a health intervention in alcohol and drug treatment. Health for First Nations is broadly envisioned as wellness and is understood to exist where there is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony. It is recognized at the National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program (NNADAP) and Youth Solvent Addiction Program (YSAP) treatment centres that Indigenous traditional culture is vital for client healing. However, there is a serious absence of empirical documentation of its impact on client wellness. This project will gather understanding of how Indigenous traditional culture is understood and practiced at a sample of 12 NNADAP and YSAP treatment centres; from this, a valid instrument to measure the impact of cultural interventions on client wellness will be developed and tested, and the findings applied. The expertise of our diverse team members well-positions us to undertake this project while adhering to the Tri-Council Policy Statement. The outcome will be improved health programming and policy for Indigenous youth and adults in drug and alcohol treatment in Canada. This project is suitably timed with core processes underway in the NNADAP and YSAP treatment systems. The NNADAP and YSAP renewal process will be finalized in 2011, of which a key recommendation is the establishment of a culturally competent evidence base to document the nature and demonstrate the effectiveness of cultural interventions within treatment programs. Further, a national data management system for NNADAP and YSAP is under development, and the opportunity exists to influence its design so that data specific to evaluation can be collected, and in turn, contribute to the sustainable offering of effective cultural interventions.