A Committed NCCAH Advisory Committee
The NCCAH has been guided in its work since its inception by a multidisciplinary advisory committee comprised of Inuit, Métis and First Nations individuals located from coast to coast to coast, who meet with us face-fo-face two to three times a year. They provide strategic advice on our priorities, make recommendations on our work plans, and provide public health expertise to support our activities.

Ensuring Quality: The NCCAH Peer Review Process
The NCCAH works to ensure our reports, fact sheets, and knowledge-sharing materials meet a high standard of acceptance as viable sources of knowledge in Aboriginal public health. Our goal is also to meet the needs of multiple audiences, including researchers, practitioners, policy makers and First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities and organizations.

The quality control process for the development of NCCAH materials involves a rigorous double-blind peer review process that includes both academic as well as community expertise. Our collaborations with a wide range of experts include those identified by areas of expertise, type of expertise (government, academic, non-government organization and others) and specific experience with Aboriginal health research. Our peer review guidelines include considerations governing the conduct of ethical research, and build in processes to help  ensure our documents are respectful of Aboriginal culture and diversity. 

Our Visual and Oral Identity
Aboriginal peoples, cultures and histories are intimately connected to land and natural environments. The NCCAH has adopted a strong visual emphasis on place in all of our materials, using images with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in a variety of landscapes to support our knowledge sharing mission. In 2010, as we launch this new website and continue our design for a wide variety of materials, we are especially pleased to be building our visual identity with the help of the photography of Fred Cottroll. A Cree from Manitoba, Cottroll has practiced professional photography for twenty years. His work is included in a permanent exhibition in The First Peoples Hall in the Museum of Civilization, and is in the collections of the National Gallery, Canadian Museum of Photography and the National Art Centre. Most recently, he deposited a “life collection” of slides and prints with the Museum of Civilization.

Language and orality are also foundations of Indigenous cultures and identity, and honored as an important means of transmitting knowledge[1].  As the NCCAH has found through our creation of documentary videos that capture the voice of Elders, youth, parents and guests in some of our major events, audiovisual media's immediacy and impact make them a powerful tool to catalyze further discussion and mobilize energies to work for change. We continue to seek ways to incorporate a strong “story-telling” component that emphasizes voice and the human element in key health initiatives. In the fall of 2010, we will be launching a monthly feature on this website called "Making a difference," highlighting stories of communities and individuals on the frontlines of health who are helping to make a difference through promising practices, innovative programs and more.

NCCAH Program Focus
The NCCAH brings a focus to a specific group or groups of people – the three distinct populations of First Nations, Inuit and Métis  in Canada – and this determines the scope of our Centre's activities. In response to the needs of our communities and informed by our research activities (see, for instance, Landscapes of Indigenous Health), the NCCAH has identified the following key priorities for our knowledge-sharing work:

Child and Youth Health – This NCCAH focus is reinforced by growing evidence and support for the “life course” model as a framework for meaningful and effective interventions in support of the health and well-being of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Social Determinants of Health  – Our centre is working to identify how sectors within and beyond health can support an integrated approach to improving Aboriginal public health outcomes.

Emerging Priorities  – The NCCAH is addressing environmental health issues relevant to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, and initiating collaborative strategies on infectious and communicable diseases.

Work to Date
In our first five years, from 2005-2009, the NCCAH has:

· Supported broad collaborative networks at the regional, national, and international levels – including the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues – particularly related to social determinants of Aboriginal health, and child and youth health.

· Identified gaps in areas of public health critical to the health of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Recent reports address a strengths-based approach to Aboriginal parenting, research issues concerning the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FAD) among Aboriginal peoples, and gaps in health data.

· Hosted conferences, forums and “Dialogue Circles” on Aboriginal child health issues, social determinants of health, and the interface between Indigenous knowledge systems and western scientific paradigms.

· Generated culturally appropriate knowledge products that support First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities in addressing key health priority areas, including documentary DVDs that capture the voices of Elders, researchers, community representatives and others on major Aboriginal health topics.

[1] M. Greenwood, “Children as citizens of First Nations: Linking Indigenous health to early childhood development,” Paeditrac Child Health (10)(9), November 2005, 554.