I was honored today to have the opportunity to present some of the collaborative work I do here at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Health Equity Research and Department of Occupational Therapy. I titled this blog post Collaboration is Key as this work would not be possible without the efforts of many.
According to Merriam-Webster the definition collaborate is “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.”
Screen shot of our National Indian Health Board presentation today. Left side is the powerpoint slide image and the right side includes a poll we took of the audience and provides a place for questions/answers.
This collaborative project titled, Improving Cancer Screenings for Native American Women with Disabilities, has been in development for the past two years thanks to the funding support of the Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention.
To date we (my Co-Investigator Julie Armin and I) have collaborated with several partners including: Arizona Advisory on Indian Health Care, The Arc of Arizona, The Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Division of Developmental Disabilities , The Arizona Department of Health Services Well Women program, The University of Arizona’s Center for Rural Health, Pima Community College Disability Resources, Hopi Cancer Support Services , both graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of public health, anthropology and occupational therapy and the list goes on….
Thanks to all of the wisdom, guidance, and great discussions these past two years, I truly feel that we have been able to raise awareness, create new partnerships, and advocates for promoting the health and wellness of Native American women with disabilities here in Arizona and maybe even beyond. For example, just this morning we provided a National Indian Health Board sponsored education program on the topic to 39 people from around the United States who are providing cancer screening programs for Native American women in their communities!
These types of opportunities remind me of how fortunate I am to get to work with such amazing collaborators to develop and share new knowledge and resources to impact change. As the project continues on over the next few years- I will be sure to provide some blog post updates.