Grant: Project Grant

Research and health services tend to exclude the voices and cultures of Indigenous peoples or fail to represent them in a respectful way. The goal of this project is to do research in a better way and improve relationships between health care systems and Indigenous peoples so that health systems and the populations they serve can respectfully and appropriately benefit from Indigenous knowledge and expertise in the area of promoting health equity. Over the last three years, our team has worked with Ktunaxa First Nation in the Kootenay region of British Columbia to develop and test a new approach to research that is led by Ktunaxa peoples and reflects Ktunaxa culture. Ktunaxa Elders named this approach xacqanal itkinil (Many Ways of Doing the Same Thing). Important features of this approach include: coming together during community gatherings and ceremonies, starting with a shared meal, using traditional approaches for sharing information and solving problems, including everyone's voices, and getting feedback often. We tested the xacqanal itkinil approach in Ktunaxa communities by working together to create a Ktunaxa Model of Wellness. During this process, community members shared their ideas about what a healthy community looks like. Community members liked this approach and said that the process was "really meaningful, really powerful." Testing the xacqanal itkinil approach was the first step along the pathway toward a long-term working relationship between Ktunaxa Nation and Interior Health Authority. The goal of the next step is to use the xacqanal itkinil approach to look at how the health care system can learn from Ktunaxa understandings of wellness to improve health services in Ktunaxa communities.