Aboriginal health research strengthened

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Aboriginal health researchers will have an easier time accessing both funding and training, thanks to the creation of four new centres across the country dedicated to supporting increased Aboriginal involvement in health research.

The four new ACADRE (Aboriginal Capacity and Developmental Research Environments) centres are being funded through the Institute of Aboriginal Health, one of 13 member institutes of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

The ACADRE centres have been formed to serve four main purposes-to support Aboriginal students wanting careers in health research; to assist scientists doing health research to do so in partnership with Aboriginal communities; to give Aboriginal communities and organizations a say in decisions about what areas of health need to be researched; and to make the results of research being done available to the community, and others who can benefit from it.

A total of $12 million in grants were given out to establish the centres, with that funding spread out over six years. The centres will be set up at the University of Manitoba, the University of Alberta, at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) in partnership with the University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan, and at the University of Ottawa in partnership with CIET (Community Information and Epidemiological Technologies) Canada.

Of the four ACADRE centres, the Ottawa-based centre is the only one that has a national focus.

Dr. Neil Andersson is executive director of CIET Canada, and an adjunct professor of International Health with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Andersson founded the international CIET organization in 1985, and the Canadian branch in 1994. CIET's mandate worldwide is to support community involvement in health research projects. Since starting up, CIET Canada has worked extensively with Aboriginal communities, and in many ways, the organization had already begun fulfilling many of the ACADRE mandates long before the centre was launched in March.

"It's probably fair to say that we've been part of the biggest and most extensive studies done by Aboriginal people. Others have studied Aboriginal people, but in a sense, we've trained Aboriginal people to do it themselves," Andersson said.

To date, more than 200 Aboriginal community-based researchers from across the country have received training through CIET.

"I think the orientation is probably as important as the capability. Because the capability is not startling. It's just off the shelf, hardcore, modern research methods that we use. So we're not really inventing too much there. But by attuning those to Aboriginal paradigms and to ways of life, and training Aboriginal people to do the work, I think that's the real value that we bring to it. And the insistence that that happen. The insistence that they are the owners of the data, and that sort of thing," Andersson said of what the CIET will contribute to the ACADRE partnership.

The University of Ottawa brings its own strengths to the mix, thanks to the holistic approach to health of its Institute of Population Health (IPH). The IPH, which will be partnering with CIET in operating the ACADRE centre is made up of seven different faculties-law, science, social sciences, health sciences, medicine, administration and engineering.

"So it means that it takes health planning, and the kind of stuff we do, which is community-based health planning, it takes it out of the ghetto, you might say, of medicine," Andersson said of the IPH.

"So many things that you can do, whether they're in the economic sphere, like employment, or in the education sphere or in the legal sphere, have health as an outcome. And that's the perspective, I think, the IPH brings very strongly to the project," he said. "It's an unusually holistic view of health. It's just unusual to find an institute that does do that far beyond the boundaries of medicine as traditionally defined."

he university's involvement in the ACADRE centre will also benefit Aboriginal researchers by giving them better access to training, and research opportunities.

"Apart from the formal qualifications of masters and doctoral programs, it also means that researchers that are associates with us have a track into university mainstream, so to speak, without getting hived off into a sub-department of Aboriginal studies or something like that. Aboriginal researchers can work in the mainstream, hold their own, and compete where appropriate. And we think that's really important."

The Ottawa ACADRE centre is now working on setting up its advisory board, which will have representation from a number of national Aboriginal organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council, the Inuit Tapiriiksat Kanatami, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and the Native Women's Association of Canada. It will be the advisory board's job to decide how the money will be spent.

"They won't be there to consider its scientific merit. That will be part of what my job is, to make sure what goes forward to them has scientific merit. But they would be deciding on its social relevance, and whether it fits with what their organizations believe ought to be done," Andersson explained.

Once the advisory board is in place, the work will begin on deciding who will receive the available funding. The centre will be funding studentships for summer students, masters students, and doctoral students, and will also be funding research projects.

"We're, if you like, almost a sort of small society of groups that are promoting Aboriginal health research," Andersson said of the ACADRE network, which in the future is expected to grow beyond the four centres now being set up.

"What we're looking at, and what we're slowly starting to talk about as we're all getting our shows on the road, is how we can use our strengths. They're not the same strengths. We're particularly strong at the fild of community-based epidemiology. Another group is particularly strong with cardiovascular and thoracic. Another one more social capital and governance issues. If you put all of those together, that's a very strong faculty in Aboriginal health research. And I think that that's really worth having. That's a big step forward."