Building our collective capacity: the development of principles to strengthen health evaluation practice in Australia and New Zealand  — Agentur Pty Ltd

Building our collective capacity: the development of principles to strengthen health evaluation practice in Australia and New Zealand  (93)

Amohia Boulton 1 , Jenni Judd 2 , Lisa Warner 3 , Peter Malouf 2 , Margaret Cargo 3
  1. Whakauae Research for Maori Health and Development, Whanganui, New Zealand
  2. Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
  3. School of Population Health, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Background:Indigenous populations in Australia and New Zealand are over-researched and often contribute to evaluations that are neither culturally appropriate, nor lead to improvements in their health and social-emotional wellbeing. As a first step to informing evaluation practice, a scoping review was undertaken to identify the Indigenous evaluation-specific principles available to guide evaluation practice of Indigenous and non-Indigenous evaluators in Australia and NZ of programmes designed to benefit Indigenous populations.

Methods:This workshop will present results from the scoping review as well as earlier consultation undertaken to determine the feasibility of developing guiding principles for Indigenous health promotion evaluations. Using an interactive round table process with Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders of Indigenous health promotion evaluations we will brainstorm strategies to strengthen the practice of Indigenous evaluation in Australia and New Zealand. 

Results/Discussions:Our collective experience indicates that Indigenous and non-Indigenous evaluators  confront a range of challenges when engaging with Indigenous communities: in the design, delivery and evaluation of health promotion programs; in recognising and respecting local cultural protocols; in integrating Indigenous world views throughout the evaluation activity, and in developing processes to actively engage Indigenous stakeholders. The nature of these challenges is complex; context specific; experienced differently by Indigenous and non-Indigenous evaluators; and influenced by the relationship between the evaluator and the evaluand (i.e. for, with, by, as). These challenges must be addressed if evaluation activity is to uphold the ideals of a true partnership; the integrity of the health promotion and evaluation professions; and ultimately contribute to improvements in the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples.

Conclusions/implications:This workshop forms part of a larger piece of work aimed at developing a set of overarching principles to guide evaluation activities with Indigenous communities in New Zealand and Australia. By participating in this facilitated discussion, Indigenous and non-indigenous stakeholders will have the opportunity to contribute their unique perspective to this work.

#equity14