Beyond the Manuscript: Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities

Abstract

Beyond the Manuscript: Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities Julie Beans, Erica Woodahl, and Hal Strelnick Welcome to Progress in Community Health Partnerships’ latest episode of our Beyond the Manuscript podcast. In each volume of the Journal, the editors select one article for our Beyond the Manuscript post-study interview with the authors. Beyond the Manuscript provides the authors the opportunity to tell listeners what they would want to know about the project beyond what went into the final manuscript. In this episode of Beyond the Manuscript, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Hal Strelnick interviews Julie Beans and Erica Woodahl, authors, Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities. Your browser does not support the audio tag. Beyond the Manuscript. Click to hear audio Hal Strelnick: Hello. I’m Hal Strelnick, and I am the co-editor-in-chief of Progress in Community Health Partnerships. This is our issue-by-issue podcast, Beyond the Manuscript. We’re asking authors of one of our articles in this issue, “Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities,” and we have two of the co-authors of that manuscript with us today, Julie Beans and Erica Woodahl. I’m going to ask them to introduce themselves. Julie? Julie Beans: Yeah, thank you, Hal, for having us. I really appreciate it. My name is Julie Beans. My father is from St. Mary’s, Alaska, which is a small village on the lower Yukon River in Western Alaska, and my mother is from the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, so I am Yup’ik on my father’s side and Oneida on my mother’s side. I grew up fairly split between the two communities throughout my life, so after getting my master’s degree in public health, I applied to work as a researcher with Southcentral Foundation. I have been with Southcentral Foundation, which is a tribally-owned and operated healthcare organization in Anchorage, Alaska, for about the last nine years. There, I work on several projects that address the health priorities that have been identified by the Alaska Native and American Indian community served by Southcentral Foundation. Hal Strelnick: Thank you, and you are speaking today from Anchorage, Alaska, is that correct? Julie Beans: I am, yes, I’m in Anchorage, Alaska. Hal Strelnick: I’m in the Bronx in New York, and Erica, you are in? Erica Woodahl: Thank you. I am in Missoula, Montana, and thanks, Hal. Thanks for having us. I’m excited to talk about this paper a little bit. I am a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Montana, and I have been here for 15 years. I’m actually originally from Montana, so I grew up here. I left to do my undergrad and graduate work, and was fortunate enough to be able to come back to this position. My research area that is part of the focus of this paper is I’ve been working with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Reservation in Northwestern Montana for the past 15 years, and we have conducted a variety of research studies focused on pharmacogenetics, so how we [End Page 593]can use an individual’s genetic information to tailor medicines to, hopefully, improve drug response and decrease adverse events. Hal Strelnick: Well, thank you. Your paper, and the title is, “Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities,” is a rigorous summary of an all-day meeting that was held on August 19, 2019, pre-pandemic, with 40 face-to-face participants. It has 11 authors, and why don’t each of you tell me what drew you to the meeting in the first place. Erica? Erica Woodahl: Sure. This meeting was actually part of a grant that we have at both Southcentral Foundation and the University of Montana, as well as other collaborators at Oregon Health Science and University and University of Washington. We have been working together for about a dozen years...