TOOL & CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

IHEI cultivates innovative decolonizing tools and best practices in research, data, and evaluation.

We are dedicated to elevating Indigenous methodologies and insights, while advancing Indigenous scholarship and theoretical frameworks that contribute to a holistic and inclusive approach to public health, rooted in the wisdom of our forebears.

Photo by Jarrette Werk, Aaniiih & Nakoda

Integrating ancestral knowledge within our programming and advocacy

Our approach is one of collaboration, innovation, and respect for the deep-rooted science and wisdom that Indigenous communities hold.

Developing Tools for Health Justice

Using a collaborative, community-based approach, we develop training models for health-land justice.

Guided by Indigenous Resurgence and decolonial research, we create pathways that invite creative dreaming for collective possibilities, where all Indigenous people know themselves as liberated, worthy, and loved. We are strengthened by the possibility and potential of growing Indigenous leaders who recognize the power of caretaking practices and who are supported in their healing from settler systems and ideologies.

Uplifting Decolonial Research to expose settler colonialism.

IHEI contributes to a growing Indigenous and Black-led movement that is calling for public health agencies, governments, and institutions to name colonialism a determinant of health. View resources IHEI has created and compiled to support this movement.

  • “With an emphasis on the notion of intergenerational trauma, there are real health effects of social, political, and economic marginalization embodied within individuals, which can collectively affect entire communities. Colonialism can also be enacted and reinforced within Indigenous mental health discourse, thus influencing scholarly and popular perceptions.” Read more here.

  • Co-authored by IHEI Executive Director and Founder, Dr. Kelly Gonzales. “Settler colonialism is a violent process that harms all beings. We build upon environmental justice frameworks and argue for Indigenous values affirmation as a strategy for countering the violence of settler colonialism.” Read more here.

  • In June 2023, The Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health announced a new publication in The Lancet co-authored by CIH Co-Director Dr. Donald Warne and Dr. Allison Kelliher. The article discussed the substantial challenges that Indigenous Peoples face across the world today, and the overarching need to “establish a framework on the Indigenous determinants of health derived from Indigenous Peoples’ communities.” Read more here.