Grant: Operating Grant

The burden of illness experienced by Aboriginal people in Canada has been directly linked to colonization. However, health problems and possible "interventions" for Aboriginal people are often studied without taking socio-historical contexts into account. Despite extensive evidence of the connections among childhood trauma, violence and myriad health problems, including chronic pain and substance use, mainstream approaches to "treatment" rarely address the historical and social roots of such issues. Often, interventions are designed at an individual level, focus on single-issue problems, and do not account for social determinants of health. In contrast, current thinking about public health issues emphasizes the need for complex interventions. Based on long standing research partnerships among leaders in Aboriginal health, service providers and researchers, the study will build on several research programs to develop and test a complex intervention that addresses the intersecting issues of trauma, violence and pain for women in an indigenous health care context. The study aims to: a) articulate an indigenous lens for use in developing and testing interventions, b) adapt a health promoting intervention (developed for women who have left abusive partners) for Aboriginal women in an inner city context who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), and c) test the feasibility and efficacy of the revised intervention. In Phase I, the existing intervention will be adapted to three interrelated conditions: an Aboriginal health care context, the fact that women may, or may not have left abusive partners, and an urban, low income inner-city context. In Phase 2, a pilot test will be conducted with a sample of 20 women to assess feasibility, identify strengths and weaknesses and assess effects on selected study outcomes. In Phase 3, efficacy will be examined with a sample of 130 women using a two-group cross-over design. We will engage in knowledge translation througout.