Our Approach
The First Nations Lung Health Project is being carried out using a community-focused, participatory research approach. This means that in every stage of the project, community members and university-based researchers work together to make decisions about the project.
- We have followed the guidelines outlined in the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2, chapter 9: Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada
- We have also considered the approaches taken by the First Nations Information Governance Committee in their First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey
The Band Councils of each community have been supportive of the project, and ownership of the information collected rests with the communities.
We have followed a four-phase approach in the project.
- During the “Vision and Relationships phase” we spent two years working with the communities to develop the project, including ten consultation sessions with community leaders, elders, health workers, and community members. The community members provided input on the questionnaires, including questions that captured important areas of health and related issues.
- For the first round of data collection, community members were trained in questionnaire administration and collection of physical assessments. Community members also conducted the Environmental assessments with the university team.
- As we move towards action, the communities are guiding priorities for action and the next steps to take. For example, the Greenlight program is a community chosen intervention with a focus on celebrating smoke-free homes.
- Assessment will follow, with a second cycle of questionnaires, and evaluations of the action steps taken. And of course, this all feeds back into vision and relationships, with the community and university-based researchers looking at further issues to assess, redress, and re-assess.
From a theoretical approach, the project has been developed around the Population Health Framework of Health Canada. This framework suggests that individual and contextual factors have effects that interact to produce different levels of risk for health. The picture here shows some of the factors that work together to affect health.
In our project, we are looking at the effects of individual factors, including:
- Air quality
- Personal health history
- Exposure to cigarette smoke
- Housing conditions
We are also looking at contextual factors, including:
- Socio-economic and socio-cultural factors
- Access to health services
- Colonization
We are considering the effect of these factors on the outcomes of:
- Chronic bronchitis
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Asthma
- Obstructive sleep apnea
Our project aims to understand how each of these work together to contribute to the respiratory health of First Nations people living on reserves in rural Saskatchewan.