Grant: Operating Grant: Network Environments for Indigenous Health Research- Dev Grants

Information about the health of people as a group is a core need of health programs and services. This information is used to plan, provide, and evaluate the programs and services. Overall in Canada we have good information about the health and health needs of people as a group. In contrast, there are big problems and gaps in group health information for First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and urban Indigenous peoples. In order to fix this, we need to build our First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and urban Indigenous health information workforce. Right now there aren't enough Indigenous people in Canada who can take on the necessary leadership roles in Indigenous health information. Unlike other countries around the world, Canada has not invested in workforce development in this area. We are proposing a training and mentorship network called Our Health Counts (OHC-NET) to contribute to the development of the needed workforce. Our goal is to train 100 Indigenous health information specialists in the next 10 years. This workforce will have both cutting edge scientific skills and advanced abilities to work productively and respectfully with First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and urban Indigenous communities and organizations. OHC-NET will provide culturally safe and scientifically rigorous training through high quality mentoring relationships. We will engage research scientists, Indigenous Elders and knowledge keepers, Indigenous communities and organizations, and Indigenous health care workers and policy makers from diverse First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and urban Indigenous communities and organizations. Trainees will learn and apply community based, community tested approaches and methods in real world Indigenous health work placements. We have existing partners from across Canada and around the world who we will engage to support OHC-NET.