Learning Objective #1: Identify specific strategies for building community capacity and fostering diverse partnerships

Learning Objective #2: Describe key issues affecting the health of African-Canadian women in rural and remote communities

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Historically, people of African descent living in Nova Scotia have not always had the benefit of access to appropriate health services. Barriers to health care include the lack of statistics or indicators on the health of Black Nova Scotians, transportation challenges, and lack of health care resources in rural Black communities. As well, health services that are culturally relevant remain the exception. For many African Canadian women, issues of gender and culture have been intersected by other variables such as limited education, regional isolation and racism resulting in cumulative impact of both real and perceived poor health and low self esteem. In order to begin to address the numerous and complex concerns of African Canadians, a team of academic and community researchers are engaging in this research to build capacity in the Black community. The team includes both Black and White women with diverse professional backgrounds; community facilitators, academic researchers, and a policy analyst in the health field. The study is exploring the health needs of Black women in rural and remote parts of the province using Participatory Action Research (PAR) method. With a sample size of 263, in-depth interviews and focus group discussion are the main sources of data. This paper will discuss the innovative process of community capacity-building through collaborative research. It will describe how to facilitate mutual mentoring and knowledge exchange between community, policy and academics researchers with different professional and ethno-cultural experiences. The paper will also discuss strategies used by the team, specific outcomes that have been achieved, and the benefits and challenges of inherent in diverse partnership. The paper will conclude with recommendations for future directions in minority people's health research and the vital role that interdisciplinary and variously diverse teams may play in addressing the health needs of marginalized populations.