REGIONAL ALLIANCE FOR RURAL HEALTH
The Regional Alliance for Rural Health will increase and advance knowledge to improve rural health and wellbeing, through collaborative community-engaged action research on the social determinants of health.
ABSTRACT
The Regional Alliance for Rural Health is a 10 organization collaborative with representation from post-secondary institutions, health service providers and rural community representatives from the Interior region of south central BC. The Alliance will facilitate sustainable student and academic partnerships and community engaged research to co-create solutions to community identified challenges. The aim is to facilitate wide engagement of rural citizens and community partners from diverse rural and remote areas to ensure essential rural context considerations and perspectives inform and direct research priorities and citizen engagement in rural research teams.
STEERING COMMITTEE
The Alliance is guided and directed by a Steering Committee which is comprised of one representative from each of the ten partner organizations. The organizations and their representative to the Alliance Steering Committee include the following:
Association of Kootenay Boundary Local Government
Garry Jackman, AKBLG Board member & Electoral Area ‘A’ Director,
Regional District of Central Kootenay
College of the Rockies
Norma Sherret, Nurse Educator
First Nations Health Authority
Jennifer May-Hadford, Public Health Officer,
Public Health Agency of Canada
Interior Health
Kim Peake, Research Navigation and Community Facilitation Lead
Sage Runner, Research Department Coordinator
Position Vacancy
Nicola Valley Institute of Technology
Drs. John Chenoweth & Aruna Gore, Educational Administrators
Okanagan College
Lisa Kraft, Associate Dean Science, Technology & Health
Selkirk College
Tammie Clarke, School Chair, Health and Human Services
Taya Whitehead, Dean, Health and Human Services
Southern Interior Local Government Association,
Shelley Sim, SILGA Board Chair, Councillor District of Clearwater,
School Board Trustee District 73
Thompson Rivers University
Dr. Barbara Jean Buckley, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Dr. Tracy Christianson, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
UBC Okanagan
Dr. Joan L. Bottorff, Professor and Director,
Institute for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention
NEWS AND EVENTS

Rural Health Equity Cluster launches new website
Building collaborations with rural community partners to understand the current health technology landscape and social enterprise opportunities for addressing existing and future health/healthcare gaps

Rural and Remote Communities’ Technological Usage during Covid-19 Pandemic
Calling rural BC residents to participate in a 20-25 minute online survey

New Eminence Cluster focuses on rural health equity
Technology and local business to enable rural communities opportunities to promote health and access healthcare

Regional Alliance Community Engagement
Community consultations were convened by the Regional Alliance for Rural Health in the Interior Health region in the spring of 2018.

Building Intersections Conference
Building Intersections for Vibrant Rural Health, the 2018 Rural Health Services Research Conference will be held May 31 – June 1, 2018 in Nelson BC.

Regional Alliance Organizational Meetings
The Regional Alliance for Rural Health is a collaboration of academics from post-secondary institutions, health service providers, elected officials and rural community representatives from the Interior region of south central BC. The Alliance has 10 core partners and is guided by a Steering Committee. The overall goal of the Alliance is to improve rural health and wellbeing through applied and academic student and academic rural health research partnerships.
Contact
For more information about the Regional Alliance, please contact Kim Peake