Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples: Partner forum

October 16-17, 2012
Ottawa, ON

The forum facilitated dialogue among potential partners and stakeholders interested in promoting health equity for Aboriginal peoples. At the forum, diverse groups – including representatives from Aboriginal organizations, Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments, industry, NGO’s and health charities came together to share their views on how CIHR could make Pathways more relevant to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Approximately 100 people attended the Forum.

For those unfamiliar with the Initiative, Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples is a CIHR signature initiative focusing on 4 themes or health inequities affecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis (Aboriginal) peoples – namely suicide, tuberculosis, obesity and oral health. Over the course of the Initiative, Pathways will fund research to improve our understanding of what works, for whom and under what circumstances, and how interventions can be adapted and scaled up in ways that are accessible and equitable.

At the forum, we were honoured to have many excellent speakers and discussants. Albert Dumont, an Algonquin Elder from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg opened the forum with a prayer and blessing. His participation helped to ground the meeting.

We are very grateful to Richard Jock from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), Elizabeth Ford from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), Jeffery Cyr from the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC) and Charles Hill from the National Aboriginal Housing Association (NAHA) for their presentations and participation at the forum.

We also heard from researchers and experts who are using Aboriginal Ways of Knowing as an approach to better understand how Aboriginal social and other determinants affect health. We are extremely grateful to S mon Brascoupé (Carleton U), Pierre Haddad (U Montreal), Cheryl Bartlett (Cape Breton U), Carol Hopkins (National Native Addictions Partnership Foundation), Albert Dumont (Elder) and Wendy Johnson (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada) for sharing their learnings at the forum. Their talks were inspiring and reminded us of the richness and diversity of Aboriginal knowledge. Aboriginal Ways of Knowing came across very strongly in their talks and also from the group discussions.

The forum also sought to learn from what others have been doing to address health inequities. The diversity and breadth of activity is very impressive. We would like to thank Shannon Doram (YMCA), Sonia Isaac-Mann (AFN), Tricia McGuire-Adams (NAFC) and Sharon Rudderham (Eskasoni Community Health Centre) for presenting on initiatives from their organizations. Their work is extremely innovative and there is much that can be learned from these examples.

Dr. John Ruffin, Director of the US National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), presented an American perspective on addressing health disparities from a community-based participatory approach. His talk, which emphasized the importance of partnership-building, was very warmly received by the audience.

We also reached out to the non-traditional sector. Many “for profit” companies have been addressing issues relevant to Aboriginal peoples through their corporate social responsibility agendas. The success of the Pathways Initiative hinges on reaching out to all sectors of society, which must include the private sector. We fully acknowledge that people have different views on engaging with the private sector, but we feel that the issues are too important not to involve them. We want to thank Greg Brady (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers), Chinyere Eni (Royal Bank of Canada) and Joanne Wong (Cisco Systems) for taking time from their busy schedules to present at the forum.

A short workshop report is presently being drafted and as soon as it is finalized we will be sharing it with the participants and posting it on the CIHR website.

We also want to thank all of the participants for sharing their knowledge, opinions and valuable time with CIHR. We would be remiss if we didn’t recognize the wonderful facilitator Kim Scott and CIHR staff for their hard work. We look forward to working with partners to further develop Pathways into a research initiative that will contribute to reducing health disparities affecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis.