Our Projects
Healthy Indigenous Communities and Families
The Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) launched the Indigenous Healthy Life Trajectory Initiative (I-HeLTI) to support research on the development, implementation, testing and evaluation of Indigenous-focused early interventions (preconception, pregnancy, infancy and early childhood) designed to improve health outcomes in later life for Indigenous communities. This innovative research will foster new knowledge about the process and resources needed to establish, sustain, and spread community-derived early interventions within communities and across the province leading to improved quality of care and health outcomes for Indigenous peoples.
Domestic Violence Prevention and Response in Health Care Settings
Domestic violence is a significant public health problem both internationally and in Canada, and a key determinant of ill-health. Integrating sustainable and effective responses to domestic violence in practice has proven challenging across health systems and settings. Our team is addressing critical knowledge-to-action gaps by gathering, synthesizing, mobilizing, and applying new evidence related to domestic violence prevention within health care practice.
Click below to learn more about CARE’s response to domestic violence during COVID-19.
Upstream Change to Address Mental Health Inequities
CARE works in partnership with Indigenous organizations and communities in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) on upstream approaches to improve Indigenous mental health. Our team has carried out projects that examine immediate mental health needs and experiences among Indigenous residents and communities across the region resulting from the 2016 Horse River wildfire and the COVID-19 pandemic to moving midstream to address mental health service gaps and barriers to accessing mainstream mental health services and programs, and lastly to support upstream change to address mental health inequities among Indigenous peoples through cross-sectoral collaboration on the design of an Indigenous-led mental health model of care.
Transforming Primary Health Care (PHC) Through Equity-Focused & Patient-Centred Research
Primary Health Care (PHC) is a setting best suited to address the social determinants of health and promote health equity. Our team is actively working on a number of projects in this area including domestic violence prevention within PHC settings, enhancing capacity in trauma-and-violence-informed care (TVIC) approaches among PHC providers to address domestic violence within PHC, and advancing Indigenous PHC in Canada.
Click below for more information on some of our partnered initiatives and projects.