Indigenous community-based health research in British Columbia’s interior

Indigenous health injustices and inequities are formed by colonial structures that are paralleled within health research itself. Therefore, Indigenous health research must re-center Indigenous Peoples approaches, or it risks re-colonization.

Thus, I aim to reframe Indigenous Peoples, cultures, knowledges, and capacities as central to a promising health future. My program of research focuses on three primary community-based health projects, which are guided by Indigenous approaches to health and research with community-partnerships as the foundation. First, in partnership with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, we are working together to frame community data within Sylix Okanagan approaches to health and data. The second project partners with Indigenous Programs and Services at the UBCO campus, to offer a healthy masculinities program for students. The third project brings together a cluster of experts to support urban Indigenous health in collaboration with Metis Centres and Friendship Centers in the Okanagan region.

My research program seeks to promote Indigenous health, health knowledges, capacities, and outcomes in ways that community understand as meaningful, and thereby support Indigenous control of Indigenous health.