FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 17, 2020 The Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (CGSHE) is excited to announce the launch of a new Director of Indigenous Research role. Dr. Brittany Bingham, who is of mixed ancestry and a proud member of the Shíshálh nation, has worked in various capacities of research and policy with Indigenous communities for over 15 years and will assume the inaugural role of Director of Indigenous Research this month.

“Indigenous women’s roles in communities were dismantled by colonialism, and returning to a focus on women’s leadership roles is key to decolonizing and reconciliation efforts.” says Dr. Bingham, who hopes to centre all of her work around the importance of elevating Indigenous community voices in research and keeping these perspectives central to findings and interpretations. She hopes her future research and work contribute to system-wide transformational change for Indigenous peoples.

Fearlessly passionate about Indigenous health and gender equity, Dr. Bingham has recently overseen an ongoing process of building Indigenous cultural safety and humility efforts across research practices at CGSHE. In her role as Director of Indigenous Research at CGSHE, she is the Indigenous lead for a newly launched Access to Responsive Justice Project, which focuses on access to responsive and restorative justice for marginalized and racialized women, including Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people, who experience gender-based violence across communities in B.C. She was also recently awarded a MSFHR funding on Informing COVID-19 Response for Vancouver’s Urban Indigenous Populations.

The new Director of Indigenous Research is a formal partnership between the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) Aboriginal Health. Both organizations are commitment to reconciliation through conducting research that is framed within the context of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and directly responsive to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls to Justice. Dr. Brittany Bingham says “this joint role will enable our research teams to collaborate on community-driven research that is directly responsive to international and national calls to action and justice for Indigenous peoples health and develop recommendations for achieving health equity for Indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on Indigenous women’s wellness.”

“I specifically hope to work on projects and research that directly address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls to Justice. Most importantly, I plan to create a supportive and culturally safe research structure that will support training and building capacity for the next generation of Indigenous community-based researchers.”

Quotes by Dr. Brittany Bingham

• “Indigenous women’s roles in communities were dismantled by colonialism, and returning to a focus on women’s leadership roles is key to decolonizing and reconciliation efforts.” – Dr. Brittany Bingham
• “Indigenous women have such resiliency and wisdom to inform research that has an impact on their health, wellness, and the policies that affect them. The research at CGSHE and VCH Aboriginal Health are closely linked with policy change and recommendations, which presents an amazing opportunity to engage Indigenous women in the research and elevate their voices to impact action and change.” – Dr. Brittany Bingham
• “Indigenous peoples have largely been marginalized from the research that creates the evidence base from which system level decisions are made and resources are allocated.” – Dr. Brittany Bingham
• “We need to work with the Indigenous experts in the community to inform our use of data that will help us mitigate COVID-19 risk in these populations, creating responses that are led by and for Indigenous peoples.”
• “Indigenous people have faced structural level racism and barriers to service access as a direct consequence of colonial policies, it is essential these structural level barriers are considered in COVID-19 responses.”
• “I specifically hope to work on projects and research that directly address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls to Justice. Most importantly, I plan to create a supportive and culturally safe research structure at CGSHE and VCH Aboriginal Health that will support training and building capacity for the next generation of Indigenous community-based researchers.” – Dr. Brittany Bingham

About the Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity

CGSHE is a UBC and SFU academic centre hosted at Providence Health (www.cgshe.ca). CGSHE aims to advance gender equity and sexual heath equity for all in BC, Canada and globally through research, policy and practice. CGSHE is deeply committed to community-based and community-driven research and building equity, diversity and inclusion in affecting change and informing gender and equity-centred clinical practice and policy guidelines. As CGSHE we acknowledge the land on which we work is the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

About Dr. Brittany Bingham

Dr. Brittany Bingham, MPH, PhD is of mixed ancestry and a proud member of the Shíshálh nation and inaugural Director of Indigenous Research at the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (CGSHE). She has worked in various capacities in research with Indigenous communities and policy for over 15 years. She is passionate about community-driven research, Indigenous research methods, health equity, Indigenous women’s health, Indigenous housing and homelessness, cultural safety and reconciliation. Brittany has overseen Indigenous cultural safety and humility efforts across research practices at CGSHE/UBC. In her Director of Indigenous Research role, Dr. Bingham is the Indigenous lead for a newly launched Access to Responsive Justice Project, which focuses on access to responsive and restorative justice for marginalized and racialized women, including Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people, who experience gender-based violence across communities in B.C. Dr. Bingham was recently awarded new funding from Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research on “Informing the COVID-19 Response for Vancouver’s Urban Indigenous Population Using Community-Driven Methods and Big Data Analytics”. Brittany has previously overseen Canadian Institutes of Health Research projects jointly led by First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) and Simon Fraser University (SFU) examining co-decision making among key partners in the transformation of First Nations governance in B.C. She has also held a number of high-level Indigenous advisor roles including Aboriginal Policy Analyst with the B.C. Ministry and led Indigenous research with Fraser Health teams and VCH Aboriginal Health.

Download the press release here