Building Research Infrastructure for Dissemination, Goals, and Education (BRIDGE)
Partnership for Public Health Research in the Oglala Sioux Tribe
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Description
BRIDGE (Building Research Infrastructure for Dissemination, Goals, and Education) built on the partnership between the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health at the University of Colorado and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Health Administration (OSTHA) to further develop the research infrastructure within the tribe and to create more effective mechanisms for research training and dissemination within the community.
The goals of BRIDGE were to help the tribe become a more equal partner in the research process and further enhance skills and expertise within the tribe to acquire funding for prevention and other program development and implementation. This funding allowed the tribe to hire a full-time research coordinator and a full-time research assistant. Discussions were held with a variety of community members regarding critical steps in advancing the community’s health research agenda. Targeted training was developed to enhance the cultural competence of university researchers coming into the reservation community and to enhance the skills of community members working in research. A tribal research conference was inaugurated in the summer of 2011, providing an opportunity for community members to directly hear reports of findings from researchers working on the reservation.
Specific aims
- To bring together community and academic partners to review public health priorities and expand on and elaborate a health research agenda.
- To develop bidirectional mechanisms for training the research workforce in skills necessary to pursue the research agenda.
- To cultivate effective dissemination methods for returning research findings to the local community, to provide the tribe, other researchers, service providers, and policy makers with the best available information about health.
- To systematize procedures developed here to provide templates for building sustainable research infrastructure in Native and other communities.
Outcomes
Research infrastructure
- Created electronic bibliography of research on Pine Ridge Reservation
- Created electronic database of research projects for OSTHA
- Supported OSTHA and CU grant applications
- CU application resulted in EAST and, subsequently, Thiwáhe Gluwáš’akapi projects
- OSTHA provided guidance to other tribes creating Tribal Research Review Boards
Goals
Focus groups with community members identified public health related research priorities:
- Diabetes – prevention and disease management
- Cancer – prevention and disease management
- Parenting – support and education for young parents and parents of teens
- Substance abuse and disorder – prevention and treatment
- Understanding and addressing the healthcare needs of elders
- Coping with trauma
- Suicide prevention
- Understanding the role of spirituality in health
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Education
- Cultural Immersion training of graduate students in the Colorado School of Public Health: Included 3 days of classroom instruction and 4 days on the Pine Ridge Reservation hearing from cultural leaders, touring healthcare facilities and historic sites, and having conversations with community members.
- Introduction to Public Health Research for Oglala Lakota College students: Included 4-week seminar series led by an OSTHA public health expert and a 5-day visit to the Colorado School of Public Health campus to hear student Capstone presentations, tour labs, and meet with students and faculty.
Dissemination
- Participated in the 2010 Native American Centers for Excellence Indigenous Research Conference
- Participated in the 2010 Building Bridges: Advancing AI/AN Substance Abuse Research - A State of the Science and Grant Development Workshop
- Funded the first Oglala Sioux Tribe Research Conference
- Presented at the 2011 American Public Health Association (APHA) conference