Ready to Practice Indigenous Health Research? An Integrative Framework of Indigenous Health Research Competencies for NEIHR Network Evaluation, Training, and Selection

Background: National Environments for Indigenous Health Research (NEIHR) are funded across Canadian provinces to enhance capacities for Indigenous health research. While capacities are required at political, organizational, and individual levels, individual capacity is critical to unpack as it is related to capacity at all levels. In the XXXXXXXXXXXX network, our evaluation team has been working to identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) required for competency and readiness to practice Indigenous health research. Method: Utilizing competency modeling techniques, we brought together XXXXXX members to participate in an idea generation session regarding Indigenous health research competencies. Competencies were grouped using a qualitative cut-and-sort technique (Ryan & Bernard, 2003) and juxtaposed with readiness to practice in healthcare domains from non-Indigenous and Indigenous literatures in a co-occurrence matrix. Results: The idea generation session produced 151 statements about Indigenous health research competencies, from which 42 non-redundant KSAOs were derived. Frequently occurring competencies included knowledge of Indigenous methodologies, skills in alignment with relational approaches, characteristics such as humility and openness to learn new approaches, and social abilities. These KSAOs supported cognitions, decolonized practice, personal attributes, research, and relational dispositions associated with perceived readiness to practice. Conclusion: Research capacity for Indigenous health research is a complicated construct often left undefined or uninterrogated. This study helped to unpack research capacity for Indigenous health research for individuals to support evaluation, training, and selection.