CCNA’s Talking Brains webinar series

September 22, 2026, 12pm-1pm ET

Culturally grounded, community-based, and self-determined dementia risk reduction research in Northwestern Ontario with Brittany Skov

Many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples experience a greater risk of dementia, influenced by social determinants of health shaped by the ongoing legacy of colonization. Despite this, substantial gaps exist in dementia risk reduction research with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. It is now crucial to enhance engagement and collaboration with these communities to promote meaningful partnerships and outcomes in dementia research.
As a First Nations-led research team working on self-determined dementia research in Northwestern Ontario, we have incorporated our cultural knowledge, values, practices, and worldviews into our research to ensure that it not only increases knowledge about how to better reduce risk for community members living at risk for dementia, but also respects, honours, and revitalizes these values while promoting brain health.
In this way, our approach fosters brain health both in the process and in the outcome. We hope that sharing our approach contributes to continued efforts towards respectful collaborations between dementia risk reduction researchers and Indigenous communities. Our research team comprises First Nations and non-Indigenous university-based researchers, health professionals, and leaders from a First Nations-led and governed regional health organization in Northwestern Ontario, Canada.

We will share our approach through two research projects: the Wholistic Brain Health Assessment Bundle Project, a national, multi-community site project with multiple project outcomes, and the Anishinabek Brain Aging in Older Adults Study, a regional project aimed at learning about cultural perspectives on risk reduction for First Nations people in Northwestern Ontario. These projects have fostered self-determined dementia research through engaging in multi-pronged regional engagement pathways with multiple Indigenous communities, land-based research methodologies and activities, cultural protocols and values, reciprocity, non-hierarchical and intergenerational relationships, and creative data collection activities that promote brain health through social engagement, social connection, activities, traditional medicine, and land-based diets.

This methodological approach to health services research has ensured that our research fosters brain health in both process and outcome, maintains alignment with community needs, and provides the necessary research evidence to support continued self-determined approaches to addressing dementia risk reduction in Canada. Many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit are at a higher risk for developing dementia, requiring self-determined, collaborative, and culturally safe community-based and led research. Such approaches may provide a pathway to address this growing national public health concern.

Please note that registration is required to attend. Click here to register.