Workshops: Examining the Relationship Between Culture, Stress, and Health in Two Inuit Communities Through Community Based Participatory Research

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Poor health and its relationship to social and economic stress are hallmarks for Native peoples across North America, especially for those living in the Arctic. Five decades of academic research among Inuit peoples in North America has established a trend of declining health and increasing health disparities that corresponds with the rapid socioeconomic and environmental changes occurring in the Arctic regions, indicating the need for more effective health interventions. Despite decades of epidemiological and public health research and increasing efforts to improve health in these communities, poor health, higher mortality, and attendant social concerns remain far higher than elsewhere in North America. Ongoing health interventions have proven ineffective, suggesting new, locally-based, and culturally appropriate approaches are needed. This project focuses a local lens on how Arctic residents understand and experience health and stress and how they prioritize health problems, making its outcomes critical for developing programs and policies that lead to lasting improvements in health and well-being.This research project will be conducted in the communities of Ulukhaktok, Inuvialuit Settlement Region and Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik to develop Community Based Participatory Research designs addressing community concerns about health and stress with direct Inuit input. Drawing upon the investigators' decades of experience working in these communities, this project is well-suited for a co-produced approach, allowing for both for efficient use of resources and the necessary rapport to work with community members to develop a research project that meets both academic and community needs. The investigators will travel to both communities to conduct mini-conferences with community members to set a research agenda for investigating health disparities and the experience of social stress in these communities. These meetings will solicit community involvement and input in targeting research priorities related to health, generate frameworks for working collaboratively with local governance, and identify mechanisms for improving local research capacity and developing sustainable solutions for improving health in Arctic communities. The outcome of this research will be a fully developed research project in which knowledge about health and stress is co-produced with the community of focus, which then retains significant input into the execution and outcome of the research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.