RITA HENDERSON — PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR — DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Health care experiences of Indigenous people living with type 2 diabetes in Canada

CMAJ 2017

DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.161098

Authors: Kristen M. Jacklin, Rita I. Henderson, Michael E. Green, Leah M. Walker, Betty Calam and Lynden J. Crowshoe

Interactions with diabetes care are influenced by personal and collective historical experiences with providers and exposures to culturally unsafe health care. Relationships with healthcare providers are central to addressing ongoing colonial dynamics in Indigenous health care and redressing past harms.

A realist review of best practices and contextual factors enhancing treatment of opioid dependence in Indigenous contexts

Compassion and self-determination are key program mechanisms that can support outcomes beyond reduced incidence of substance use. That being, the inclusion of mitigating systemic health inequities and addressing social determinants of health in Indigenous communities will ultimately lead to healing the whole human being.

Opioid use disorder treatment disruptions during the early COVID-19 pandemic and other emergent disasters: a scoping review addressing dual public health emergencies

Informed approaches to addressing social determinants of health and patient needs are required for greater accountability to people with opioid use disorder (PWOUD) early during emergent disasters like COVID-19. As a component of disaster preparedness, healthcare systems need to engage in planning for key patient populations such as PWOUD to ensure their care can be continued simoultaneously with the response to the disaster; adequate resources to allow attention for both social and health systems issues can prepare a system to serve PWOUD during disasters.

Advancing Indigenous Primary Health Care Policy in Alberta, Canada

Included in the 94 calls to action, TRC calls that Indigenous health disparities be recognized as resulting from previous government policies, and to integrate Indigenous leadership/teachings and perspectives into health systems. In recognition of this call, PHC decision-makers, practitioners, and scholars in the province of Alberta brought together stakeholders from across Canada to explore Indigenous PHC models from other Canadian provinces to collaboratively build relationships for policy reform and identify opportunities for PHC innovations within Alberta.

First nations people's perspectives on barriers and supports for enhancing HPV vaccination: Foundations for sustainable, community-driven strategies

The lingering harms from European colonization that Indigenous people in Canada face influence health inequities, as Indigenous people have higher human papillomavirus (HPV) infection rates, leading to worse cervical cancer-related screenings, diagnoses and outcomes than in non-Indigenous Canadian women. Policy guidance is needed to optimize HPV vaccination rates and, thereby, decrease the burden of HPV-related illness, including high-morbidity surgical procedures and chemo-radiotherapy.

Moving The Agenda Forward Together: Innovating Indigenous Primary Care In Alberta, Strategic Event Report 2016

Cumming School of Medicine

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/10765

Authors: Henderson, Rita Isabel, Crowshoe, Lynden (Lindsay), Montesanti, Stephanie, Leduc, Charles

Practitioners, policy-makers, and planners in Alberta note that quality primary care for Indigenous people is undermined by significant structural gaps and deficiencies. In spite of some recent innovations, Alberta seems to lag behind similar jurisdictions, such as Ontario and British Columbia, in mobilizing structures to improve primary care delivery that is culturally safe, acceptable and equitable for Indigenous people.