1 / 19

Promoting Health Equity for Indigenous Canadians through Higher Education

This study aims to identify barriers and facilitators to health equity for Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, analyze the implementation of Indigenous health equity as a priority, and propose strategies to promote higher education access and retention for Indigenous students.

marylkelly
Télécharger la présentation

Promoting Health Equity for Indigenous Canadians through Higher Education

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Removing Barriers to Higher Education to Promote Health Equity among Indigenous Canadians Alexandra Kent- Equity Lens in Public Health, UVic

  2. Acknowledgements University of Victoria Centre for Aboriginal Health Research

  3. ELPH Research Program Study 1: Health Equity Priorities and Strategies Parallel Indigenous Analysis Purpose: • Conceptualize relational environments within the public health system; • Identify barriers and facilitators to health equity for Indigenous peoples in BC; and • Analyze the uptake and implementation of Indigenous health equity as a priority in BC health authorities. Significance: • Pronounced inequity among BC’s Indigenous populations • Culturally-relevant framework of analysis

  4. What is Health Equity? Equity: “The absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically.” -World Health Organization, 2014 Inequity: “Differences in health which are not only unnecessary and avoidable, but, in addition, are considered unfair and unjust.” -Margaret Whitehead, 1992, The Concepts and Principles of Equity in Health

  5. Framework of Relational Environments Stem Environments Core Environments Root Environments Haida Tree by kireihiryu http://kireihiryu.deviantart.com/art/Haida-Tree-173902964

  6. Stem Environments Non- Human Human Symbolic

  7. Core Environments Communities Institutions Systems

  8. Root Environments Historical Cultural Social Political

  9. Findings Education as… “Increase cultural safety in curriculum for health care education; Use post-secondary network to communicate cultural safety themes…” “Build on existing relationships to develop curriculum that addresses Aboriginal peoples’ health needs” “Improvements in health status of Aboriginal people depends on improvements in the social determinants of health, such as education, employment and housing, and not just improvements to health services.” “We will work with the Ministries of Health Services and Education and post secondary partners to ensure the appropriate supply of staff has the skills and competencies they need to provide safe, high quality care, and are able to respond to changing health care system and population health needs.” “Building for the future through educating Aboriginal youth and community members about both professional and support career opportunities in healthcare.”

  10. The Potential Role of Higher Education • Recruit and retain more Indigenous students in public health programs through flexible learning designs and online course delivery. • Promote participation among non-traditional student groups (e.g. working professionals and parents). • Provide access to individuals living in Northern and remote areas, and further provide an incentive for them to stay and work in their communities while studying and after graduation. “There is an urgent need in Canada to increase access to accredited, effective post-secondary education to Indigenous learners through a variety of modalities to meet a range of learners’ needs, goals, prior learning histories, and life circumstances” (Ball, 2007, p. 2). “E-learning also seems to hold promise for Indigenous learners who have work, family, or community roles that preclude them from participating in on-campus programs of study, or who have personal or financial reasons for choosing not to join classroom-based learning environments” (Ball, 2007, p. 2) “Many rural, remote, and northern communities face difficulties in access to learning opportunities. As a result, there is growing interest in distance learning as a means of overcoming the challenges of geography and isolation” (Battiste and McLean, 2005, p. 12).

  11. Advantages of Online Education

  12. Effectiveness of Online Education Research Specific to Indigenous Populations • Post-Secondary • (Ball, 2007) • Survey of Indigenous learners enrolled at the University of Victoria. • Explores the potential of online learning technologies to help fill the persisting large gap in Indigenous post-secondary participation, retention and success. • Suggests the existing research literature on the effectiveness of online learning for Indigenous learners is sparse, and the few available case studies include high school programs and delivery models that use other distributed learning technologies. • Grade School • (Philpott, Sharpe, and Neville, 2009) • Study of use of e-learning among K-12 Indigenous students in Coastal Labrador. • Provides evidence of the importance, usefulness and learning benefits of web-delivered instruction as a viable alternative to face-to-face instruction for Indigenous students in rural, isolated contexts. • Claims e-learning shows promise in the attempt to address low achievement and limited educational opportunities for aboriginal and rural students.

  13. UVic: Online Programs • Canadian leaders in distance education, using emerging technology to deliver innovative programs. • Award for Excellence and Innovation in Student Services (2007) from the Canadian Association of Distance Education. • “UVic prides itself on the rigor and high quality of its non-traditional courses, which are equal to, and often models for, on-campus offerings. You will study with excellent instructors from the University and professional practice who are committed to their subjects and to access for non-traditional students.” – UVic Distance Education Services

  14. UVic: Indigenous Students

  15. Internet Connectivity Low Speed (Not connected as per Industry Canada minimum of 1.5Mb/s to the household) Consumer Broadband - Satelitemte (Not connected as per Industry Canada minimum of 1.5Mb/s to the household) Industrial/Institutional Capable Broadband (Not connected. No residential access) Consumer Broadband - Terrestrial (Connected as per Industry Canada minimum of 1.5Mb/s to the household) Consumer Broadband - Satelitemte (Connected as per Industry Canada minimum of 1.5Mb/s to the household) Industrial/Institutional Capable Broadband (Connected)

  16. Reputation of Online Education Students, instructors, universities, employers…“E-learning is often dismissed on the basis of preconceptions about the lack of interactivity possible through online learning platforms or assumptions that Indigenous learners always prefer to learn through face-to-face encounters that rely on visual and oral communications” (Ball, 2007, p. 2).“The long-term viability of online courses in the U.S. is in SERIOUS DOUBT if the viability is tied to the perceived academic value of developing them” [emphasis in original] (Schell, 2004). Discussion…

  17. Questions? Contact Information Alexandra Kent Email: alexandrakent@hotmail.com Phone: (604)316-2286

  18. References Ball, J. (2007). Indigenous learners online: The future isn’t what it used to be. Retrieved from http://www.ecdip.org/docs/pdf/Ind%20Ed%20Conf%20paper%2007.pdf Barnett, Ronald (2010). Being a University (Foundations and Futures of Education). Taylor and Francis Bell, H. A. (2012, October 1). Online learning, only better. The Chronicles of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Massive-Excitement-About/134684/ Butler-Jones, D. (2008). Our population, our health and the distribution of our health. In The state of public health in Canada: Report of the Chief Public Health Officer (pp. 19-33). Ottawa, ON: Public Health Agency of Canada. Retrieved from http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2008/fr-rc/cphorsphc-respcacsp06b-eng.php Dabbagh, N. (2007). The online learner: Characteristics and pedagogical implications. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(3), 217- 226. Golod, A. (2014, September 19). Online options expanding in higher education landscape. US News, Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/college-of-tomorrow/articles/2014/09/22/online-options-expanding-in-higher-education-landscape Philpott, D., Sharpe, D., & Neville, R. (2010). The effectiveness of web-delivered learning with aboriginal students: Findings from a study in coastal Labrador. Canadian Journal Of Learning And Technology / La Revue Canadienne De L’Apprentissage Et De La Technologie, 35(3). Retrieved from http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/545/268 Schell, G. P. (2004). Universities marginalize online courses. Communications of the ACM 47(7). Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1005821 Stange, C. (2011). Privacy Concern and Student Engagement in the Virtual Classroom. University of Victoria. Retrieved from http://distance.uvic.ca/pdfs/Privacy-Concerns-and-Student-Engagement.pdf University of Victoria Institutional Planning and Analysis. (2013, June 25). University of Victoria Performance Measures. Retrieved from https://www.uvic.ca/vpacademic/assets/docs/2013PerformanceMeasures.pdf

More Related