Culturally Informed Care: A Vision for the Future with Dr. Melissa Walls

Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Melissa Walls,
the Director of the Great Lakes hub for the Johns Hopkins Center
for Indigenous Health. Dr. Walls shares her experiences leading
the center through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,
highlighting the innovative approaches and resilient spirit that
guided her team. We delve into the long-term changes she
envisions for addressing health needs within Indigenous
communities, emphasizing the importance of culturally informed
care. Dr. Walls also discusses her involvement in a
groundbreaking study, Benevolent Childhood Experiences (also
known as BCE’s), offering valuable insights into how these
positive experiences impact the health and well-being of
Indigenous Communities and beyond. 


Melissa Walls (memengwaa) is Eagle Clan and a first generation
descendant of the Couchiching First Nation and Bois Forte Band of
Ojibwe (maternal) and of Swedish/German descent (paternal). She
grew up in northern Minnesota along the Canadian border and now
lives in Duluth, MN where she serves as Director of the Center
for Indigenous Health’s Great Lakes Hub and an Associate
Professor of American Health in the Department of International
Health at Johns Hopkins University.


 


Melissa is trained as a social scientist (PhD sociology, 2007)
and is committed to collaborative, community-driven research. She
has been working on health equity research projects with Tribal
Nations in the Great Lakes region of the US and Canada since
2002. The Great Lakes Hub project focus on topics including
mental health epidemiology, culturally-relevant, family-based
substance use prevention and mental health promotion programming
and evaluation, and promoting better health for families living
with type 2 diabetes.