Centering Community: Health System Innovation in a Poly-Crisis Age

Community-Based Research Canada presents “Responding to Crises: What is the Value of Community-Based Research?”: our fall 2024- spring 2025 e-learning series. In this E-Learning Series, Community-Based Research Canada showcases Community-Based Research as a tool for responding to current crises facing our society. Community-Based Research engages academic and community partners, including those more directly affected by the crises we face, to conduct action-oriented research leading to innovative solutions co-designed with community. We investigate how Community-Based Research can answer to crises and what value it adds in efforts to innovatively solve issues and advance social development goals. We highlight research projects that exemplify a Community-Based Research approach and have concretely responded to crises in areas such as societal inequities, climate emergency, housing, hunger, poverty, and more.

Sub-Theme: Responding to Health, Wellness, and Social Inequity: From September-December 2024, we will explore the sub-theme of community-based research projects that have responded to current societal issues in health, wellness, and social inequity. This sub-theme will culminate in an open discussion on this topic; anyone who attends any event in this series is welcome to join this discussion which will take place in December-January 2024.

Webinar: Inner City Health and Wellness Program

Edmonton's Inner City Health and Wellness Program was formed to improve health and social outcomes for structurally vulnerable populations, including people who use drugs. Our researcvh team is a collaboration between academics, front line care providers, and community members with lived/living experience using drugs. The role of community has evolved over time, reflecting built community capacity for research. Starting with advisory and liaison roles, community members have since become involved in protocol development and troubleshooting, data collection, analysis, and knowledge mobilization. We are currently transitioning to a community-centered research hub model wherein academic team members are collocated with community team members, in community, to foster increasingly community-led research.

Enter an era of poly-crisis. Our community is experiencing multiple threats to its well-being, from infectious diseases, to a toxic drug supply, to housing and climate crises. How do we, as a research program, give voice to community, such that community shares its truth and imagines the way forward? How do we create the preconditions needed for co-designed solutions to be heard? Presenters will invite webinar participants to journey with them on the program's current community-partnered "un-survey" and learn about the praxis of research in poly-crisis spaces, emphasizing such elements as reciprocity, safety, respect, and celebration.

Presenters:

Ginetta Salvalaggio, Associate Scientific Director, Inner City Health and Wellness Program

Shanell Twan, Community Liason, Inner City Health and Wellness Program

Ginetta Salvalaggio Ginetta Salvalaggio (she/her/elle), MD, MSC, CCFP (AM), is a Professor with the University of Alberta Department of Family Medicine, and an Associate Scientific Director with the Inner City Health and Wellness Program. She received her degree in Medicine from the University of Alberta and completed a family practice residency in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Initially practicing as a rural locum, she eventually returned to Edmonton to establish a family practice. Dr. Salvalaggio joined the Department of Family Medicine in 2007. She has also completed a Masters of Science in Population Health through the University of Alberta School of Public Health. Her academic interests are focused on social accountability, patient and community engagement, and health services for people who use drugs and other urban underserved populations.

Shanell Twan (she/her, Kihew Ahcahk Iskwew) is the Community Liaison for the Inner City Health and Wellness Program where she leads the Community Advisory Group (CAG), comprised of people with lived experience who provide input and feedback on inner city health care issues. Shanell has successfully collaborated with academic, health, and social sector groups to provide community updates and advice on health priorities and guidance conducting participatory research. She has also contributed to multiple applied health research studies, including protocol development, implementation and refinement, as well as knowledge mobilization activities. Shanell is currently working as the Core Team Supervisor with Edmonton’s Streetworks harm reduction program, and has served as a Board Member with the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs - Alberta Chapter (CAPUD) as well as the Alberta Alliance Who Educate and Advocate Responsibly (AAWEAR).

*This event is intended for CBRCanada members only. If you are employed, studying, or affiliated with any CBRCanada member institution/organization, you are already considered a member. If you are unsure if your institution is covered, learn more here. Individuals whose institution is not on this list are welcome to register as an an individual member. We value community participation and have a free membership option for registered community mobilizers.