Academic conference shares Indigenous health knowledge

Approximately 100 scholars from across Canada will come together in Regina from June 24-27 to present their Masters and PhD research topics relating to Indigenous health.

The Indigenous Peoples Health Research Centre will host the 11th Annual Indigenous Innovation Integration Gathering. The centre funds community-based research with the integral idea of ‘knowledge translation,’ aiming to take research off the shelves and make it more applicable to Indigenous communities, said IPHRC research associate Cassandra Opikokew.

“These are projects where a researcher from a university will partner with a First Nations community, a Métis community or organization and actually undertake research for Indigenous health,” Opikokew said.

Graduate students present their research through oral or poster presentations with respect to Indigenous communities and Indigenous principles.

“Many of them are looking at areas of research that haven’t even been undertaken before or are underexplored,” Opikokew said. “The gathering gives them the ability to network with each other and find support in each other. In some cases they find research areas that overlap so they are able to connect and share information.”

IPHRC gives funding support to students in areas from medicine to fine arts and helps them showcase their work to all of Canada.

Presenting research at the gathering is Leisha Grebinski, a journalist and Master of Arts student in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Regina.

“I’m doing a critique of the media representation of the Aboriginal gangster in the prairies,” Grebinski said. “To look at how gangs have become such a topic of interest, not just for the community but for the media as well. And so what is the media’s role in creating awareness of this issue and how do stories on the six o’clock news contribute to stereotyping.”

Her project focuses on a case study of gang member Daniel Wolfe, who was involved in a shooting in Fort Qu’Appelle that killed two people.

“He was one of the six men who escaped from the Regina jail… And then he did an interview with a journalist right after the escape, which is quite rare. He wanted to talk to media and he was killed in prison last year,” Grebinski said. Wolfe was very visible in the press and his mother was quite outspoken at various times.

“So I think it’s a good case to look at more in depth and sort of know how Daniel Wolfe has been constructed as a notorious gangster in the last few years and what have been the implications of that,” she said.

Grebinski hopes this research will give her a deeper understanding as a journalist and how the media addresses gangs, and its affect on Aboriginal youth who emulate those ideas and are beginning to participate in gang activity in northern communities.

Also presenting her research is Sarah Oosman, a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, whose focus is Métis and First Nations health at the school and community level.

Her research allowed her to travel to Ile-a-la-crosse in northern Saskatchewan and deliver diabetes education to elementary students. She combines physical activity, nutrition, community-specific knowledge, and local knowledge to combat the health challenges of obesity and T2D.

“The important part of this project, from my perspective, is bringing health promotion programs to school-aged children and specifically Métis children,” Oosman said.
Positive results of her work include a student taking material home that helped a family change their pop-drinking habits.

The study showed her that it is important to improve the availability and accessibility to high quality foods, especially within rural and remote locations.

Oosman was one of three people across Canada awarded the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health Scientific Director’s Award of Excellence for research that has significant potential for improving knowledge of Aboriginal health.