Healing Pathways: 23 years and counting in the Great Lakes Region 

Our Great Lakes Hub in Duluth, Minnesota is proud to coordinate the Healing Pathways Project (Anishinaabe Giigewin Miikana)  —one of the longest-running research partnerships with Indigenous communities in this region. Since 2002, eight partner communities in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario have gathered insights on cultural strengths, mental health, and substance use from hundreds of American Indian and First Nations youth and their caregivers across adolescence and into adulthood. 

The Healing Pathways study has resulted in important innovations in the way researchers measure culturally salient concepts including historical trauma, cultural strengths, and socio-cultural connectedness. Findings from the study have been used to develop community interventions to improve mental health and reduce substance use. In alignment with principles of data sovereignty, Healing Pathways data belongs to each Tribal or First Nation community from which data were collected and has been used in Tribal grant writing and reporting.

This study has been supported by the National Institutes of Health since its inception and remains funded until 2026. The team is currently wrapping up a new phase of survey interviews with the project’s original youth “target” participants, who are now in their mid-thirties. For the first time, target participant’s own children are being invited to complete survey interviews, making Healing Pathways a unique 3-generation panel study design.

Healing Pathways Publications
Healing Pathways YouTube Channel

Stay tuned for our feature interview next month, we’ll bring you direct insights from one of the team members helping to carry this important work forward.