CROWNING US: Cardiovascular Risk AcrOss the Lifespan with WomeN, INtersex, Gender Diverse and other Under-Served People in Canada
The goal of this project is to help reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke in underserved communities across Canada. To do this, we’re working with people who have real-life experience—people who are currently living with or have lived through heart- and/or stroke-related health challenges. These partners help shape our research, so it’s more meaningful and relevant. The project is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Rather than doing research on people, we believe in doing it with them. This means creating a safe, welcoming space where everyone’s voice is heard and respected.
This project has five main goals:
- Share knowledge about how heart disease and stroke affects people differently based on sex and gender.
- Build stronger partnerships with communities and individuals with lived experience, both locally and across the country.
- Help communities get ready to work together on heart and stroke health research.
- Encourage new and diverse collaborations that are fair and inclusive.
- Focus on the priorities of women, intersex, gender-diverse, and underserved people, especially when it comes to heart and stroke health research.
We want community partners to be involved every step of the way—from deciding what’s most important to study, all the way through to sharing the research findings.
Our recent review showed that there hasn’t been much focus on involving communities or people with lived experience in heart health research related to women. We think that needs to change, and this project is our first step in making that happen.
We’ll be using a few helpful frameworks (like SPOR and the Connecting the Dots model) and collaborating with the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance (CWHHA) to guide how we can work together with underserved communities and grow our impact.
