The Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project: A Kanien'kehaka

November 6, 3:30pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Hamilton Library Room 301

"The Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project: A Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) community mobilizes to ensure healthy future generations"

Primary prevention of type 2 diabetes is urgent for Indigenous populations in Canada. Type 2 diabetes was relatively unknown among Aboriginal people before the 1940s. The Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) is a 19-year old research and community intervention partnership with the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kahnawake in Canada. KSDPP’s goal is the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes among local children and youth, using socio-ecological approaches to promote healthy lifestyles. This presentation will discuss the successful efforts to create the conditions that promote well-being from a Kanien’kehá:ka cultural perspective which include a strong community direction, collaborative research and intervention approaches. Empowering approaches recognize the social determinants of health, the historical and sociocultural context in which healthy lifestyles are shaped, and underscore using both indigenous and western scientific knowledge and respecting Indigenous People’s rights for self-determination.

Treena Delormier is an Assistant Professor in The Office of Public Health Studies, with the Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Health MPH specialization at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She holds a MSc degree in nutrition from McGill University and her doctorate in Public Health (Health Promotion focus) from Université de Montréal. She is Kanienkehaka (People of the Mohawk Nation) from the community of Kahnawá:ke, Quebec, Canada. Her research has been primarily community-based with Indigenous communities. She worked on developing the KSDPP Code of Research Ethics in 1994 which bases ethical research on traditional Mohawk decision making, which served as a model for ethical research with Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Delormier's research interests include food, nutrition and health, social perspectives of food, indigenous research methodologies, qualitative methodologies, public health and health promotion, food security, traditional food systems, diabetes and obesity prevention, and aboriginal conceptions of health.

In her research and professional work, Delormier strives to use respectful approaches to building understandings and knowledge that will serve to support indigenous peoples’ goals for well-being now and for the future generations.


Ticket Information
Free & open to public

Event Sponsor
Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education Office of Research Relations & UHM Library, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Teri Skillman, 956-8688, skillman@hawaii.edu

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