Research
LEAPS In the second of the series, we catch up with LEAPS’ Dr Grace Walker, who is just back from the Healing Our Spirit Worldwide conference, held in Vancouver in September. Here the team got to present their work to an international audience.
H
ealing Our Spirit Worldwide (HOSW) is the ninth official gathering of Indigenous healthcare professionals from many nations. Held every three years, the week-long conference is a celebration of the healing power of traditional Indigenous knowledge and cultures. The Gathering drew approximately 5000 people and featured keynote speakers from Australia, Hawaii, north America, and Aotearoa. Grace Walker says she pushed for the LEAPS team to apply to present at the conference. ‘It’s the one place you can showcase all the Indigenous solutions to Indigenous problems.’ They saw it as a perfect opportunity to do two things: to investigate how other Indigenous healthcare groups were dealing with similar situations, then for LEAPS to show how they were engaging with Indigenous communities in academic spaces. This is not an area where many Indigenous people tend to be, Grace says. LEAPS is the acronym for Low-cost Equitable Artificial Pancreas System.
The LEAPS team at Healing Our Spirit Worldwide: Dr Grace Walker, Lucy Jessep, Dr Jake Campbell, Dr Jennifer Wong, and Sr Lalitha Mukundan.
The LEAPS team submitted two abstracts to HOSW, and both were accepted. The team’s Masters student, Lucy Jessep (Ngāi Tahu) was the first to present her work, including the kaupapa Māori methodology she is following within it. She is investigating common themes and threads and narratives of what people experience. Part of her research has been investigating the experiences of Māori communities. She looked at the barriers and enablers they face when trying to access diabetes technology. The presentation went down well with the audience, and the team was expecting questions at the end. Instead, they found the First Nations audience echoing that they had had almost identical experiences to those people have in Aotearoa. ‘Everything we talked about was escalated,’ Grace explains. While we would have heard of some in rural New Zealand needing to drive a couple of hours to get to a GP, they heard reports of how in Canada that, due to its size, and because a lot of Indigenous people live
remotely, it’s sometimes easier to fly than to drive for hours. ‘Because the roads are in a worse state than in New Zealand, it can be a three to four hour drive, one way.’ Fellow LEAPS member Dr Jake Campbell presented the second abstract, alongside Grace. Their view was understanding the differences in the way people view technology in cultural settings and how this can help with design. Grace gives an example is that the design for their insulin pump they had 12 months ago is different to the design they’re going with today. ‘It’s all due to talking to people, hearing how they live day to day, understanding their user needs. We’ve altered our design to ensure that they’re better suited, rather than what an engineer thinks is suitable.’ Both presentations were well received by the international audience as well as our own contingent. The team was met with enthusiasm by a number of heads of organisations, which included an invitation to present their work at Melbourne medical school. Find out more at: https://leaps.nz.
DIABETES WELLNESS | Summer 2023
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