Project Information:
Attention to 'upstream' determinants of health are placing new demands on health researchers and practitioners to work together with new and unlikely allies, often well beyond the traditional health domain. The need for intersectoral action to improve the determinants of health in Canada is especially pronounced in northern, rural and remote communities where converging health impacts demand new levels of collaboration and integration to optimise limited resources.
Prior collaborative work with the Northern Regional Drinking Water Teams and planning for the 2010 BC Water Symposium identified a combined 'knowledge-push' and 'knowledge-pull' within the proposed project team, expressed by the overarching research question: What can be learned by working together to link knowledge of the health benefits of integrated watershed governance with the experience and practice of intersectoral action for health?
Based on prior collaborations, common questions and the solid research partnership of Northern Health and the University of Northern British Columbia, the Knowledge to Action (KTA) project will match research strengths with identified needs of knowledge-users, in a collaborative, integrated knowledge translation process.

The purpose of this project is to:
1) Strengthen capacity for intersectoral action to improve water-related determinants of health in northern BC;
2) Understand what can be learned by working together to link knowledge of the health benefits of integrated watershed governance with the experience and practice of intersectoral action for health;
3) Establish a ‘participatory research community’ who will work together to:

• Integrate knowledge of health benefits of watershed governance with experience of intersectoral action for health;
• Apply this knowledge to the development of best practices, programs, and policies for health in the context of specific case studies in northern BC watersheds;
• Establish a systematic process of participatory research and evaluation to inform future phases of collaboration;
• Facilitate knowledge exchange of lessons and insights with users beyond the team and region.

Contact:
Project Co-Investigator
Email: parkesm@unbc.ca
Phone: 250-960-6813