Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples: Funding
Several different ways to fund Pathways work have been set up to engage First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities and researchers. Because the health issues and the factors that determine the four exemplars are so closely linked, a mix of different and complementary skills and knowledge is required. To this end, CIHR will fund:
Details about specific funding opportunities can be obtained from CIHR ResearchNet.
Aboriginal organizations
Partners for engagement and knowledge exchange
Partners for Engagement and Knowledge Exchange grants (PEKEs) will fund Aboriginal organizations to become partners in the research projects, to facilitate learning across funded research teams, and to support the translation of research findings into policy and practice decision-making. Aboriginal organizations will enable Aboriginal voices, ways of knowing, and culture to all feed into the work. The overall goal of the PEKEs is to facilitate the implementation teams and the research chairs in scaling up interventions across communities and translating the findings into policies and improved health.
July 2013
This funding program will be open to two different kinds of Aboriginal organizations.
- Aboriginal organization with a national mandate to represent First Nations, Métis, Inuit or urban Aboriginal peoples; or
- Aboriginal organization with a regional, sub-population or topic-specific focus which is interested in collaborating with other organization(s) that already have a national mandate to represent First Nations, Métis, Inuit, or urban Aboriginal peoples.
Teams
Pathways implementation research teams
The Pathways Implementation Research Teams (IRTs) funding opportunity supports the overall goal of Pathways of developing a better understanding of how to implement and scale up interventions and programs that address Aboriginal health inequities in four priority exemplar areas – suicide, diabetes/obesity, tuberculosis, and oral health. The IRTs will conduct research to identify effective interventions, strengthen them, and support scale-up. Funding will be provided according to how ready the intervention is to be scaled up:
- development grants will support research teams to identify promising or effective interventions and build relationships with communities
- enhancement and adaptation grants will support research teams aimed at strengthening the effectiveness or scalability of interventions through community-informed enhancements or adaptations
- scalability grants will support research teams to study the scale-up of promising interventions across heterogeneous communities
Individual researchers
Pathways research and training chairs
The Pathways research and training chairs are designed to support researchers at the mid-career level. All funded chairs will focus on Aboriginal peoples’ health and contribute both to the knowledge base in an exemplar area and to increasing research on themes that cut across the four exemplars.
Examples of potential Pathways research and training chairs
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Aboriginal Ways of Knowing in relation to population health interventions
Pathway projects will also encourage use of Aboriginal Ways of Knowing, which includes knowledge of and experience with healing practices both ceremonial and physical, such as herbal treatments. These practices include the concepts of health, wholeness and resilience, and approaches to wellness and healing. Maintaining wellness, including mental, emotional and spiritual health, is often based on Aboriginal teachings and ceremony, which provide a basis for positive self-image and healthy identity. Aboriginal knowledge of the land and its ecology helps sustain health for many First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Aboriginal Ways of Knowing must inform interventions for them to succeed, because they will be more culturally appropriate and more meaningful to Aboriginal peoples, and be more accepted than non-Aboriginal approaches.
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Scalability of interventions of relevance to Pathways
To better understand what programs and policies will work to promote health equity, there is an urgent need to collaborate with and learn from Aboriginal communities. Once Aboriginal communities have a better idea of what works to promote health equity, they will be in a position to implement and scale-up interventions to reach more people and share the benefits broadly and equally, achieving health equity for all.
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Economics of population health interventions involving Aboriginal peoples
Research and economic analysis on scaling-up interventions, taking into account a range of viewpoints (perhaps from Aboriginal people and healthcare decision-makers), and studying shifts in costs from treatment to prevention.
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Aboriginal health policy
Aboriginal health research should generate both knowledge and action. In particular, research should guide policy and program development and delivery of health services for Aboriginal people.
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Gender and health related to Pathways
Research to strengthen population health interventions by specifically taking into consideration the role of gender and sex of Aboriginal women and men on health outcomes.
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Surveillance and Pathways/Aboriginal health
Research focusing on reorienting surveillance systems to support the study of interventions that take into consideration Aboriginal concerns and ethical considerations.
Research projects
Population health intervention research grants
Population health interventions operate within or outside of the health sector and have the potential to impact health at the population level. These interventions can include rapidly unfolding programs, policies and resource distribution approaches that have been initiated by others (e.g., policy makers). Research on “natural experiments” will be supported through this funding opportunity. Population health intervention research grants funded through Pathways will focus on studying policy interventions and the relationship to Aboriginal peoples’ health and health equity.
July 2013
Population Health Intervention Research (Fall 2013 Competition)
Funded research
- Claire Crooks, Understanding the impact of adapting and implementing an evidence-based mental health promotion program: The Mental Health First Aid-First Nations initiative
- Linda Larcombe, A New Vision: Dene First Nations Perspectives on Healthy Housing
- Richard Long, Informing the "Strategy against Tuberculosis for First Nations on-Reserve": Evidence from the "Determinants of TB Transmission" Project
- Michel Lucas, Monitoring & supporting Arctic Char distribution for pregnant women in Nunavik to improve maternal & child nutrition
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