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The Faculty of Health Professions congratulates Dr. Margot Latimer, Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and her community based partner and Eskasoni Health Director, Sharon Rudderham who recently received a Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) award. Latimer and Rudderham’s team, comprised of Health Professions faculty members Katherine Harman and Kara Paul as well as Eskasoni-based health professionals Daphne Hutt-MacLeod and Anita MacKinnon, Dal Medicine’s Allan Finley and University of New Brunswick Nursing’s Lisa Perley-Dutcher recently won a 3 year, $440,000 CIHR grant.

Their research, which focuses on the expression of pain among Aboriginal children, uses a combination of health data and cultural expression and beliefs to assess and interpret Aboriginal children’s experience with pain.

“We know that Aboriginal children are the fastest growing youth population in Canada, however, initial investigations indicate that they are significantly under-represented as patients in pain clinics.” Latimer explained.

Given the high rates of ill-health and the reality of resource inequality, the impact of untreated pain on health outcomes for Aboriginal children could be profound. Based out of the IWK, the project’s goal is to work with four Aboriginal communities across the Maritimes. The team aims to document the cultural characteristics that define Aboriginal children’s pain experiences in order to build the field of research on how pain is expressed, assessed and treated. Past research has taught them that Aboriginal children are taught to endure pain and hold it in. In this study, Latimer et al will try to gauge the extent to which this understanding of pain and pain-response limits corresponding clinician assessment and treatment.

The project has been designed in consultation with the Aboriginal community and will use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to assessing pain. The investigators will use the Reproductive Care Program database and MSI records to study the frequency and quality of Aboriginal children’s interactions with the health system. They are also engaging Mi’kmaq artist Alan Syliboy and a NSCAD student to work with child participants to draw pictures of their pain.

“This study will provide a more robust dataset on Aboriginal children’s interaction with the health system and expression of pain,” explains Latimer. “But we hope it will also encourage better understanding between the Aboriginal and health communities that will reduce the pain experience and enhance the wellbeing of Aboriginal children.”