PRINCE ALBERT — The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has announced $5.5 million of funding for the Network Environments for Indigenous Health Research (NEIHR).
The funding will serve as a renewal of NEIHR centres across the country, including the Saskatchewan centre featuring University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers.
The lead on the USask and co-lead for the national program is Dr. Robert ‘Bobby’ Henry, who is originally from Prince Albert.
“It’s a five-year investment, $4 million, (at) $800,000 a year to support the training and mentorship of Indigenous students in the province of Saskatchewan and non-Indigenous students in Indigenous health research and to support communities,” Henry explained. “(It’s) to develop small scale research projects that can be upscaled.”
Henry, an associate professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies in the College of Arts and Science at USask, is the nominated principal investigator for Saskatchewan NEIHR and a co-lead with the NEIHR National Coordinating Centre. He emphasized the importance of continued support for this kind of research in Canada.
He said NEIHR centres are independent, Indigenous-led networks that provide supportive research environments for Indigenous health research driven by, and grounded in, Indigenous communities in Canada.
Henry said that they try to work at the community level with First Nations and Metis communities on their health priorities. The requests come from the communities themselves.
“We asked the community what are the outputs that they would like to see. What are the things that would make an impact in their community around different health and well-being initiatives, and then what we do is from a research perspective is we make sure that they have their knowledge translation on the outcome that they want to see,” Henry explained.
Henry has been part of the network since 2010 when he started his PhD and he was able to get funding for research through these networks.
“There's going to be 10 across the country with the National Coordinating Center that is also in Saskatchewan,” Henry said.
They also bring together students and mentors to help support them through research. They also hold yearly gatherings such as the national gathering of Indigenous Graduate students that Henry is currently attending.
"With the national gathering of graduate students, that has helped me to build a network and maintain it nationally with other researchers doing similar work within the health field,” he explained. “For my research specifically, it helped me to begin to understand the different complexities [that have] happened within systems health systems in relation to people involved.”
He said that his research is about building and creating health justice research programs.
Saskatchewan will also be home to the National Coordinating Centre for the program.
"That's $1.5 million to support national efforts to bring together the years and support the continued support for the national graduate students,” Henry said.
NEIHR programs across Canada are intended to connect and support researchers, Indigenous leaders and community members in community-based research to improve Indigenous health. The research undertaken with NEIHR incorporates Indigenous ways of knowing, community-based knowledge and “scientifically excellent” health research, per the CIHR release.
There are nine NEIHR Centres in regions throughout the country that will be supported by this investment. This new funding will also support NEIHR’s expansion into the Yukon.
