Indigenous

Culturally-Based, Family-Centred Mental Health Promotion for Aboriginal Youth Phase 2

The major goals of this project are to systematically pilot and evaluate an intervention program aimed at promoting mental health in First Nations communities across Canada.

Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training Program Pilot Project: Homelessness Among Indigenous Adults

This project examines community perspectives on health needs and resilience among Indigenous adults who are homeless in Duluth, MN.

Stress Exposure, Response, and Mental Health among Indigenous Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

The major goals of this project are to advance measurement of stress processes among AI people through comparisons of stress biomarkers and self-report measures and to use multiple indicators of stress including stress biomarkers to investigate the interactions between stress processes T2D disease progression and treatment compliance among AI adults. This community based participatory research is based on partnerships with five Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota and Wisconsin who invited the research team to work with their clinics.

Qasgiq: Dissemination Using Yup’ik Indigenous Implementation Strategies

The Qasgiq (communal house) project will sustain a culturally-based Yup’ik AN process approach to intervention by developing implementation strategies that enhance local control, enrich the CBPR process and community capacity to direct it and increase intervention durability and sustainability over time.

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Project Deatils

Project Description

Qasgiq, in addition to being a Yup'ik Alaska Native (AN) communal living structure, also describes traditional ways of coming together to organize as a community to accomplish important tasks. Qasgiq provides an Indigenous logic model for an intervention implementation strategy grounded in local Yup’k culture and context in southwest Alaska. The Qasgiq (communal house) project will sustain a culturally-based Yup’ik AN process approach to intervention by developing implementation strategies that enhance local control, enrich the CBPR process and community capacity to direct it, and increase intervention durability and sustainability over time. Its purpose is to develop dissemination and implementation strategies for evidence-based prevention practice for youth to reduce the most significant health disparity experienced by AN people.

Specific Aim 1: Enhance and extend our CBPR approach with Yup’ik community and tribal partners by using a QasgiqIndigenous implementation strategy to disseminate knowledge derived from the Ellangneq intervention development and Elluam Tungiinun prevention trial projects. 

Specific Aim 2: Engage community member intervention staff and tribal leadership in an organizational certificate curriculum that provides Indigenous leadership development and effective state and federal advocacy; research, grant writing, and information technology skills; and training in the Qasgiq implementation strategy and Qungasvikintervention process approach.

Specific Aim 3: Conduct a process evaluation of the Qasgiq theory-driven intervention implementation strategy and CBPR dissemination approach as implemented with a new Yup’ik community, and test the effectiveness of these strategies through a Qasgiq implementation arm in an extension of the project’s existing randomly assigned, staggered baseline, dynamic wait list control prevention trial design.

Project Status

We are implementing the intervention in a new community using the existing local knowledge and experience base from other intervention communities, we are revising the toolbox of dissemination materials and developing a dissemination training program, and we are examining intervention effectiveness in the new community.

Read more about the Qasgiq Project

Contact

Stacy Rasmus, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator
 
smrasmus@alaska.edu

James Allen, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, University of Minnesota Medical School
jallen@d.umn.edu


Billy Charles, Co-Investigator

bacharles3@alaska.edu

Funded by NIH/National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, Award number 5R24MD006126

Project Details

Project Description

The purpose of this study is to explore ways the Seven Traditional Teachings of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people may apply to living a healthy life for contemporary Anishinaabe, and how they may be taught to contemporary Anishinaabe youth. Many American Indian communities, and increasingly health researchers, have highlighted the importance of cultural ways of knowing and cultural values as pathways to health, and in particular, as pathways to behavioral health and well-being. Elders and leaders in Ojibwe communities often prescribe youth who are experiencing difficulties with substance abuse, alcoholism, and other social and behavioral health problems to follow their culture. In such cases, they often refer to cultural teachings as guiding principles to help these young people to refrain from engaging in alcohol or substance abuse, antisocial behavior, or health risk behaviors. However, for researchers and services providers, as well as for many Anishinaabe themselves, it is unclear how these teachings translate into action leading to healthy behavior in order to live a good life. In addition, it is also unclear how a young person who lives in contemporary tribal settings should learn these teachings today that were meant to help prevent someone from experiencing difficulties. A primary goal is to identify types of situations and activities where a contemporary Anishinaabe young person could receive instruction and learn one of the Seven Teachings as potential prevention program activities.    

Project Status

We are in the process of interviewing Anishinaabe Elders on three Minnesota reservations to learn how they were instructed in the Seven Teachings, and to gather their thoughts on which of these techniques might be applicable to youth today. We are also engaging in a needs assessment.

Community Advisory Board

Susan Ninham, MS – Red Lake Middle School Principal
Kathy Goodwin – Naytahwaush Elder 
Tom Mason – Circle of Life Cultural Coordinator
Mike Fairbanks – Cass Lake HIS
Bonnie Fairbanks – Leech Lake Child Abuse and Prevention Council
Rosemary Christensen, EdD – Professor emeritus, American Indian Studies, UW-Green Bay

Contact

John Gonzalez, PhD
218-755-2881
jgonzalez@bemidjistate.edu

James Allen, PhD
218-726-7144 (department)
jallen@d.umn.edu

Mino-Bimaadizin

The purpose of this study is to explore ways the Seven Traditional Teachings of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people may apply to living a healthy life for contemporary Anishinaabe, and how they may be taught to contemporary Anishinaabe youth.