Rachel Landy
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Rachel Landy is a PhD student in the Community Health and Humanities Program at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Guelph and a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Rachel’s experiences working in HIV prevention with youth in Thailand, with youth and traditional healers in Ghana and exploring the use of music as an HIV prevention strategy with Aboriginal youth in Canada have demonstrated the need for novel and creative strategies for HIV/AIDS prevention and education, for reducing stigma and for improving quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS. In her PhD research, Rachel is working with the Labrador HIV Project to create and evaluate arts-based HIV prevention programming for the Aboriginal youth they serve.
Rachel recently completed a Universities Without Walls fellowship in HIV research and she currently holds a doctoral research award from the Canadian Institute for Health Research in Community Based HIV Research in the Aboriginal stream.
Rachel has been awarded the LaVerne Monette Award through the CIHR Social Research Centre in HIV Prevention.
LaVerne Monette Award Recipient
Arts-based HIV/AIDS Education for Aboriginal Youth in Labrador: A community-based participatory action research project
In Canada, Aboriginal people continue to be overrepresented in the HIV/AIDS epidemic with rates of infection three times higher than the general population. In Labrador, the need for an HIV/AIDS prevention program was identified by Labrador HIV/AIDS Surveillance Study. Arts-based approaches (such as music, storytelling and photography) have been recognized as innovative and promising strategies for HIV/AIDS education with Aboriginal youth. However, there is a lack of research exploring how these interventions work, as well as how they are implemented and experienced by both the participants and implementers. Working in collaboration with the Labrador Friendship Centre HIV Project, we will develop, implement and evaluate an arts-based program for the youth they serve to evaluate the effectiveness and experience of participating in an arts-based program. A community-based participatory action research design incorporating Indigenous methodologies will be implemented. This HIV/AIDS education program will be guided by a Steering Committee, comprised of stakeholders including community leaders, elders and youth targeted by this program. Tools to assess the effectiveness and value of the program will be created in consultation with the Steering Committee. Interviews will be conducted with key informants. The findings of this research project will have a direct and immediate impact on HIV/AIDS education in Labrador and will inform future arts-based HIV/AIDS education initiatives.
