Baker Lake starting Champions of Health program targeting diabetes
Plan is to create prevention-based health programming
In Baker Lake, the municipality is looking to empower youth to lead community efforts on diabetes prevention, according to a Dec. 19 news release shared on its Facebook page. (File photo)
The hamlet of Baker Lake is ready to start a new health program focused on diabetes prevention.
Called the Champions of Health, it aims to engage everyone from elders to youth and the local workforce to set priorities for prevention-based health programming with a focus on diabetes, it said in a news release shared on the hamlet’s Facebook page.
Baker Lake will launch the first phase of the work, which involves an assessment of community needs and priorities, over the next few weeks. This includes engaging with schools in the community, the local health centre and other health-care providers and community leaders.
“Following this initial assessment, the hamlet will engage youth, families, and the community as a whole to better understand the needs and priorities of youth and other members of our community in relation to health and wellness,” the news release noted.
The hamlet anticipates the benefits of the program will include increased youth participation in community health initiatives, improved community awareness about preventing pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes, and a reduced need for pharmaceutical and medical interventions to manage symptoms of diabetes.
PATHWAYS Indigenous Health Collaborations, which is providing the financial support to start the program, is an initiative between Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd., Bimaadzwin and Indigenous health policy leaders from across Canada.
The amount of funding provided wasn’t revealed in the hamlet’s news release.
On its website, PATHWAYS points to the history of colonization in Canada, including a health-care system “that does not consider Indigenous models of well-being,” as a reason Indigenous peoples have high rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes.
It notes that prior to 1940, diabetes was rare among Indigenous people across North America. Now, it said, 80 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime.
“PATHWAYS points to the history of colonization in Canada, including a health-care system “that does not consider Indigenous models of well-being,” as a reason Indigenous peoples have high rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes.”
Can someone translate this into understandable language? I can’t escape the sense that this is meant to obscure reality, rather than cast light on it.
Think your wondering, how fresh Pop have they been having to be this concerned?
It’s interesting how news organizations disseminate this kind of jargon (some might say ‘maxims’) as if it were common and widely understood.
Nunatsiaq, can your writers explain the meaning of this phrase in plain language? (I’m skeptical).
The larger problem, as I see it, is that an empirical / scientific claim has been made here. It is telling us that Inuit get diabetes because the health care system “does not consider [their] models of well-being.”
I’d like to see the research that demonstrates this causal link. Though I suspect it does not exist.
When science is undervalued and political narratives overvalued this is what we get; causality attributed to vague forces that no one bothers or cares to qualify.
I like to understand why CHR job description aren’t amended to ensure education is provided to Inuit about diabetes?
Why aren’t they along with the community NIC doing more in their respective places to ensure this information is voiced and heard?
If I had to make a guess, it’s because the rate of retention of nurses is rock bottom, the staffing skeletal, and the bare-bones maintenance of the health of the population already stretches staff to the limit.
It’s a laudable initiative, don’t get me wrong- but right now, things are so critical on a regular basis that it’s hard to imagine this getting any traction, seeing as each quarter, a number of healthcare centers just flat out close.
I undestand that the communities have crisis in keeping nurses. But majorirty of the CHR are from the community and should be educated enough to go on the local radio, visit the elders/youth centre in their community to ensure that the information about diabetes, is heard. It’s not only diabetes but others that can be preventable