Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Context: Chronic disease, such as type 2 diabetes, is a large concern for public health within developed nations, especially in First Nations communities, where rates are much higher than in non-Native populations. Successful interventions are always well tailored to their context, and participatory rural appraisal methods aid in this process of adaptation. Community readiness is one example of how knowledge about the community landscape and context is created. Despite the accessibility of this knowledge, there has been a large hurdle in implementing successful and sustainable programs and activities at the community level. Knowledge mobilization and knowledge translation strategies have the potential to increase mobilization within communities for prevention activities. Objective: To better understand the role of a research-developed tool for knowledge mobilization processes in First Nations communities. Of special interest is how the adapted CRM creates knowledge that can then be translated to action from the perspective of lay First Nations community members. Human Subjects Review: This study was approved by the IRB of McGill University and the University of Western Ontario. Design: Qualitative descriptive study based of focus group discussion. Setting: 6 First Nations communities recruited within Wave 1 of the FORGE-AHEAD research program. Participants: All community members who attended an 'Action Planning' workshop as part of the FORGE-AHEAD project were asked to participate. Results: Participants discussed the usefulness of the CRM tool around the following themes: key informants, community context, structure and organization of the tool, and mobilization using the Knowledge to Action framework (Graham et. al.). Conclusions: With a few adaptations to better suit the way First Nations communities are organized, the community readiness tool has the potential to encourage mobilization around diabetes prevention and care.