August 17, 2010

Indigenous health

Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe is improving indigenous health.Indigenous people in Canada experience a greater burden of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and mental illness than non-indigenous people. A new five year international project will investigate how medical education influences access and quality of health care with the goal of reducing disparities in those diseases. Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine will lead the Canadian component of the collaboration.

“This project will address gaps in our understanding of how differences in health professionals’ clinical decision making, communication and engagement with patients and families might impact health outcomes for indigenous patients,” says Crowshoe, an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and member of the Calgary Institute for Population and Public Health.

Other Canadian universities involved in the study are the University of British Columbia, Queen’s University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. As well, the University of Auckland and the University of Western Australia are participating. Each country will explore a different aspect of medical education.

The teams will meet regularly over the next five years to share their expertise, which is an important aspect of the project says Dr. Betty Calam of UBC. “We are very excited to have this opportunity to learn from each other’s experience to strengthen the ties between our three countries.”

The five-year project is called Educating for equity: Exploring how health professional education can reduce disparities in chronic disease care and improve outcomes for Indigenous populations.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) will contribute $1.25 million to support Canadian contributions to this project. “I am very pleased that researchers at four Canadian universities have partnered with their Australian and New Zealand colleagues to tackle the question of clinician education in such a broad way, and with such a strong emphasis on culturally sensitive engagement,” says Malcolm King, Scientific Director of CIHR’s Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health (IAPH).

“Led by IAPH the CIHR is committed to working with Aboriginal Peoples to develop the tools needed to respond to the unique health challenges they face,” he says.

The project is supported by the International Collaborative Indigenous Health Research Program. The program was developed and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.