Currently, Inuit patients are flown out of their communities to southern hospitals for medical care and non-Inuit healthcare professionals are flown into northern communities (often for short periods of 6-months or less) to provide basic healthcare services to the local population. This model of healthcare provision across Inuit Nunangat reinforces unequal patient-provider relationships, weakens Inuit self-determination, and fuels systemic racism in healthcare.
The overarching goal of our multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral partnership is to:
- Co-create new knowledge about Inuit experiences with anti-Indigenous racism in maternal and child healthcare services.
- Co-develop both short-term and sustainable, long-term cultural safety strategies that:
- Enhance patient empowerment.
- Increase local capacity in Inuit-led perinatal health services.
- Improve overall maternal and child healthcare access and quality.
Our partnership is well-positioned to achieve this goal with team members and partners from Inuit-serving community-based organizations, national and territorial Inuit governmental organizations, practicing Inuit midwives, elders, a philanthropic organization, and university researchers.
We employ a combination of participatory research and Aajiqatigiingniq principles to design a community-based participatory research project that reflects the cultural values and worldviews of Inuit. We will use both quantitative (survey) and qualitative (focus groups, in-depth interviews, fuzzy cognitive mapping) methodological approaches to document and reveal how anti-Indigenous racism manifests in the context of maternal and child healthcare for Inuit.
Our focus on anti-Indigenous racism and cultural safety will generate new knowledge about the lived experiences of anti-Inuit specific racism in maternal and child healthcare. Importantly, this knowledge will then be mobilized to mitigate anti-Inuit racism in healthcare services through co-developed patient-centered cultural safety strategies that focus on empowering Inuit patients (as opposed to an exclusive emphasis on changing the attitudes, implicit biases and behaviors of non-Inuit healthcare providers). Our project will also strengthen local Inuit capacity in perinatal health services and amplify existing local expertise by providing opportunities for Arviarmuit women to learn about midwifery and perinatal health from practicing Inuit midwives and elders.
Team: Director Z. Vang; Co-Directors: K. Baker, S. Tagalik; Co-Applicants: N. Andersson, G. Baikie, B. Epoo, c. Ferguson, P. Johnston, A. Navickas, G. Smith, E. Snelgrove-Clarke, M. Zammit-Maempel; Collaborators: K. Beddard, N. Kolola, A. Kusugak, M. Mina, L. Napayok, T. Sarazin, A. Tukulak, M. Tulugak
Partners: Aqqiumavvik (Arviat Wellness) Society, Ilitaqsiniq Nunavut Literacy Council, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Inuulitsivik Health Centre, Martin Family Initiative, McGill University, Nunavut Tunngavik, Inc., Queens University
Funder: Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)