Doctoral Dissertation Research: Health, Wellness, and Indigenous Knowledge: A Community-Based Participatory Research Study

美国的原住民社区经历着重大而持久的健康挑战。在这些社区内进行的研究，除了关注那些在土著人民中造成疾病的因素外，还越来越关注促进健康的因素。然而，研究往往侧重于源于生物医学干预措施或结构的促进健康的因素，而不是来自土著社区本身的因素。鉴于土著社区内对生物医学的历史性不信任，以及重新呼吁将土著知识纳入保健服务，有必要与直接来自土著社区和合作的健康和保健来源进行接触。这篇博士论文的研究旨在通过检查在土著服务的学校和非营利组织的健康计划，调查工作人员和学生如何理解，消费和生产健康和健康。除了培训研究生，这项研究有相关的干预措施，重点是土著健康差距和主权，特别是那些依赖于与土著社区的合作。更直接地说，研究结果将用于通知学校健康计划的发展和维护。这是一个基于社区的参与式研究（CBPR）项目，这意味着研究人员和社区合作者在整个研究过程中分享知识，决策权和研究产品。这项研究合作将寻求通过访谈和使用Photovoice回答几个问题：（1）土著和非土著工作人员和学生如何描述和区分“健康”和“健康”的概念？(2)土著和西方知识体系的共存如何影响健康和保健的概念？(3)工作人员/学生如何在健康和保健工作上合作，以及这些合作如何影响与学校和社区健康相关的结果？学校的健康项目是这项研究的焦点，反映了身份、历史、权力和医学的复杂纠结，这些因素塑造了在教职员工、学生和周围社区中促进健康和健康的形象。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Indigenous communities in the U.S. experience significant and enduring health challenges. Research within these communities increasingly pays attention to factors that promote health in addition to those that produce illness among Indigenous peoples. However, research often focuses on health-promoting factors that originate from biomedical interventions or structures, rather than on those that come from Indigenous communities themselves. Given the historic mistrust of biomedicine within Indigenous communities, and renewed calls for the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge within health-delivery, there is a need to engage with sources of health and wellness that come directly from Indigenous communities and collaborations. This doctoral dissertation research seeks to do so by examining the wellness programs at an Indigenous-serving school and non-profit, investigating how staff and students understand, consume, and produce health and wellness. In addition to training a graduate student, this study has relevance to interventions focused on Indigenous health disparity and sovereignty, especially those that rely on collaboration with Indigenous communities. More directly, study findings will be used to inform the development and maintenance of school wellness programs. This is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project, meaning that the researcher and community collaborators share knowledge, decision-making power, and research products throughout the study process. This research collaboration will seek to answer several questions through interviews and the use of Photovoice: (1) How do Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and students describe and differentiate between the concepts of ‘health’ and ‘wellness’?, (2) How does the co-existence of Indigenous and Western systems of knowledge impact conceptions of health and wellness?, (3) How do staff/students collaborate on health and wellness work, and how do these collaborations impact outcomes related to school and community health? The school’s wellness programs serve as the focal point for this research, reflecting the complex entangling of identity, history, power, and medicine that shapes the promotion of wellness and health among staff, students, and the surrounding community.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.