Rita Isabel Henderson
Assistant Professor in the Cumming School of Medicine, and Full Member at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary.
- My background is in the social sciences and health inequities research. As a models of care scientist in Family Medicine, my research program focuses primarily on Indigenous health, ranging from population health research to clinical intervention research, to the integration of these two. I earned a PhD addressing the social impacts of multi-generational trauma among communities having endured oppression in southern Chile, and have since adapted this expertise to the health impacts of historical trauma among Indigenous communities in North America.
- I am co-PI on a national CIHR-funded initiative to improved health professional education for Indigenous health equity ($953,000, 2018-2023), and NPI on a recent CIHR knowledge synthesis grant ($95,000, 2018) to addressing best practices for prevention and treatment of opioid misuse among First Nations in Alberta. I am also co-PI on a cancer prevention initiative in First Nations with significant mental health components related to historical trauma, namely around sexual health and increasing the uptake of HPV vaccination among First Nations boys and girls ($1.25 million, 2017-2022).
- Community and health professional partnerships include the Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada, and the AHS Population, Public and Indigenous Health Strategic Clinical Network.
Research Interests
- Health inequities research
- Mental Health
- Stress
- Indigenous health
- First Nations health
- population health
- clinical intervention research
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