Dr. Kelly Gonzales Featured In”We Inspire” Video Series By Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board
The Northwest Native American Research Center for Health (NW NARCH) kicked off their year-long Research Academy, at Portland State University, to introduce American Indian and Alaska Native teens interested in exploring the diverse world of public health.
As one of the Native educators at the Research Academy, Dr. Kelly Gonzales, Associate Professor at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health and creator of the Indigenous Health Concentration in Public Health, is highlighted in the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board “We Inspire” video series. Dr. Gonzales shares the origins of her interest in public health, the need to account for culture as a positive attribute to Native health, and that [health] equity be rooted in, and emerged by Indigenous People.
Dr. Gonzales’s philosophy in teaching and the intention behind the creation of the Indigenous Health concentration, is to build a future public health workforce of culturally responsive leaders with deep appreciation and respect for Indigenous knowledge, science, and wisdom – a will for decolonizing and promoting systems of health justice that center on the strengths and values of community, and to bring more Natives into the field of public health. “Through my teaching platform, students become change agents equipped to foster a culturally responsive and anti-oppressive public health infrastructure,” says Dr. Gonzales. Through the empowerment of education, Dr. Gonzales hopes the future work of these change agents will reduce the harmful impacts of racism, elevate frameworks to decolonize the healthcare systems, and maintain stigma-free healthcare systems to achieve AI/AN health equity in the practice of public health.
The Indigenous Health concentration (IHC) is a collaborative model that compliments the Indigenous Nations Studies (INST) major and minor, intersects with STEAM disciplines, and can serve as a post baccalaureate pathway to the health sciences professions (nursing, medicine, dentistry). This concentration is the nation’s only undergraduate concentration that centers learning about health equity and public health from Indigenous peoples.
Visit the Indigenous Health Concentration page for more information.