A national plan for researching Indigenous health will provide funding and research for Indigenous people and communities across Canada for the next five years.
Nearly $43 million will go towards the national Indigenous health research plan, which will be administered through the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health.
According to Dr. Carrie Bourassa, the scientific director of the Institute, the new initiative will facilitate conversations rather than simply prescribing solutions.
“(Communities) get to choose who their partners are, where often it’s been the academy who has most of the control,” Bourassa said.
She said that a one-sided approach was typical in the past.
“(The academics) go to a community and say ‘I have this great research project,’ but that might not be a priority for (the community).”
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Now, she said the communities can work with academics to better select the projects that are important to them and which take advantage of their own knowledge.
“Communities not only know all of the health issues that they’re facing, they have the solutions,” she said.
She called the initiative a step towards self-governance and reconciliation.
The announcement was made at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) on Thursday, where the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health is located. The announcement also includes a new five-year plan for the institute.
The funding will come from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), a federal agency dedicated to supporting health research.
Margaret Kisikaw Piyesis, a spokesperson for the Regina-based organization All Nations Hope AIDS Network that works to end HIV and hepatitis C infections in Indigenous people, welcomed the new approach.
“Indigenous research is very important to us as an organization,” she said.
“The CIHR has opened the doors for us to be able to access more funding for research projects, to bring solutions to life for Indigenous people of the land.”
U of S president Peter Stoicheff said that it is important to include Indigenous people in decisions about their own health care.
“What this work is about is (involving) Indigenous people, Indigenous communities, Indigenous knowledge keepers, elders and researchers in the academy, who are the ones that can help to do that,” he told Global News.
The nearly $43 million will be evenly distributed over the next five years.
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