A prominent University of Saskatchewan researcher is being honoured for her work in Indigenous health.
Carrie Bourassa, the scientific director of the CIHR’s Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health at the U of S, is the recipient of the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation’s achievement award.
She said a big part of her research in Indigenous health is ensuring it is community driven.
“We privilege Indigenous knowledges, we privilege Indigenous methodologies and we are basically here to serve Indigenous communities in whatever manner that communities wish to engage in research,” she said.
Bourassa is also a faculty member of the College of Medicine at the U of S and research lead at Morning Star Lab in Regina.
She said since the COVID-19 pandemic began about 10 months ago, much of her research work has been focused in this area.
“So when COVID-19 first hit, communities were really asking for, at least from our lab, they were asking for reliable information that was easy to understand so we launched the Home Fires project.”
Bourassa said some of this work has resulted in fact sheets on the coronavirus which are now available in all Indigenous languages in the province.
She added the fact sheets have been so popular they have been translated internationally into traditional Indigenous languages in the United States as well as a number of other languages including Portuguese.
The Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation also honoured U of S medical imaging researcher Humphrey Fonge with its impact award as well as recognizing six other health researchers at the university with excellence awards.
(PHOTO: Carrie Bourassa. Photo courtesy University of Saskatchewan.)