Healing Wind and CART: Community Action Research Team

Cecilia Zoe-Martin, Anita Daniels, Jennifer Naedzo, Leone Lafferty and Cody Mantla with Nancy Gibson. Tłįchǫ Community Action Research Team

The Tłįchǫ Community Services Agency has created the Community Research to Action Team (CART), five young Tłįchǫ adults, whose job is to promote community well-being and unity though research-based programs and services. Their goal was to integrate Tłįchǫ values as they addressed factors that influence community well-being. Governance is the key theme that integrates the network of emerging issues such as addictions, nutrition and sexual health. We define governance broadly, including independent/personal responsibility for action to shared community responsibility.

Youth Driven Participatory Research in Aklavik, NT

Denise Kurszewski, Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, Yellowknife, NT

The Moose Kerr School in partnership with the Aklavik Health Committee and the Arctic Health Research Network NT have led a research initiative to engage youth and elders via participatory methodologies to study issues related to food security and climate change in the Beaufort Delta region of the Northwest Territories. The research projects have been integrated into the school curriculum. Students complied information on the topic area of interest, designed questionnaires and gathered information using video methods. Key findings from the dietary and climate change projects will be presented.

Aklavik H-Pylori Research and the Aklavik Health Committee

Billy Archie, Chair of Aklavik Health Committee.

This presentation provided a community perspective on the H-Pylori study, including its organization, conduct, and impacts on local residents. It reviewed what was done and what could be done differently in future, and how the research will contribute to decisions around health monitoring, treatment approaches, awareness, and case management in the community.

Language for Wellness

Fibbie Tatti, Délįne and Yellowknife, NT

This talk provided an overview of the importance of Dene language in understanding Dene culture and knowledge which is so often the information that researchers arriving in our communities are seeking. However such understanding takes a long learning process of translating the Dene language concepts into ones that can be properly understood in English.  Tattie, a former Languages Commissioner of NWT, discussed how Dene language has knowledge that is important to use in understanding what researchers are seeing when they come to Dene communities.

JOHN B. ZOE

John is leading statesman and key catalyst in launching and resolving the Tłįchǫ negotiations with the Canadian federal government, Zoe is currently the Chief Executive Officer for the Tłįchǫ government. One of the foremost experts on Tłįchǫ history, a custodian of Tłįchǫ culture, and a driving force in the protection and enhancement of the Tłįchǫ language, he helped to create the Behchokǫ Community Teacher Education Program which incorporates Indigenous education philosophies into a modern curriculum.

The History Channel documentary mentioned by John in his talk can be watched online here.

How Maternal Health Matters for Child’s Health?

MARJO-RIITTA JÄRVELIN, MD, MSC, PHD

Marjo-Riitta was trained in medicine in the University of Oulu, Finland and in Environmental Epidemiology and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. She is currently affiliated at Imperial College London and has a part-time professorship at the National Institute of Health and Welfare in Finland. She is a director of the widely acknowledged Northern Finland Birth Cohort Studies (about 50 000 subjects, born in 1966 and 1986). Her special focus has been in understanding the disease development from prenatal period until adult age. She has also an active role in research training as a Divisional Director of Postgraduate Studies.

Human Health in the Russian North: Development Issues

EVGENY R. BOJKO, PHD, MD

Evgeny is the director of the Institute of Physiology, Ural Division of Russian Academy of Sciences (Syktyvkar, Russia). He was born on 16 July 1960 in the USSR and graduated from the Kursk Government Medical Institute (USSR) in 1983 and since 1987, has been actively engaged in Arctic medical research. He earned a PhD in 1991 and became a Doctor of Medical Sciences in 1995 from Moscow University. In addition to directing the Institute of Physiology, he is also the head of the Department of Biochemistry of Komi Branch of Kirov State Medical Academy, Syktyvkar, Russia.

Indigenous Pedagogy in Mental Health: Healing Teachings for Mental Health Workers and Valuable Knowledge for Clients

SUZANNE L. STEWART, PHD

Suzanne is a member of the Yellowknife Dene Nation. She currently works as a professor of Aboriginal healing in Counselling Psychology at OISE – University of Toronto. Research interests include mental health and healing, Indigenous research methodologies, and Indigenous post secondary success. She also works in as a mental health consultant and in client care for an urban Native health agency.

Is Health a “Human Security” Issue for the Arctic?

GUNHILD HOOGENSEN, PHD

Gunhild specializes in Security Theory and Politics, Civil-Military Relations, and International Relations Theory as well as the research fields of gender politics and international political economy. She is also the International Principle Investigator and lead in the International Polar Year Project “GAPS” which examines multiple understandings of security in the Arctic region, particularly in Norway, Canada and Russia.

Climate Change and Health Research in the Canadian Arctic: Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future

CHRIS FURGAL, PHD

Chris is an Associate Professor in the Indigenous Environmental Studies Program at Trent University in Peterborough Ontario. He is the co-Director of the Nasivvik Centre for Inuit health and changing environments administered at Laval and Trent Universities. His research focuses on environmental health risk assessment, management and communication with northern Aboriginal communities. He has been a lead author of several national and international science assessments on Arctic environmental health issues including climate change and environmental contaminants.