Decolonizing Academy
From systemic harm to collective healing.
IHEI is cultivating a decolonizing practice among the public health workforce and Indigenous health advocates that encourages the collective learning and application of Indigenous values.
About the Decolonizing Academy
Building Indigenous-led pathways to decolonize public health systems.
The Decolonizing Academy is a transformative curriculum-based training and technical assistance program that reimagines public health through a decolonizing lens. It is designed to build the workforce and infrastructure needed to address the colonial determinants of health.
By strengthening people and systems, the Academy addresses the root causes of health and data inequities and builds capacity grounded in Indigenous values, relationality, and data sovereignty.
This program moves beyond conventional equity frameworks to activate anti-colonial allyship and transform institutional practices from within.
We offer trainings & technical assistance
to institutions, organizations, leaders, & advocates who want to build a workforce that addresses the root causes of health inequity using decolonizing as a driver for Health Justice.
Overview of the Curriculum & Trainings
The Decolonizing Academy engages public health professionals in understanding how colonial systems shape data, methods, and practices.
Participants explore frameworks for decolonizing data, develop relational accountability skills, and learn to apply decolonizing methodologies within their institutions and communities.
Each module is guided by the principles of reciprocity, responsibility, and resurgence, ensuring that learning is both personal and systemic.
The curriculum is designed to support all levels of the public health workforce—including data analysts, managers, directors, leaders, and decision-makers—and to create bridges between them for continued collaboration and shared accountability.
Training Pathways:
Cohort Learning Series
Builds a Community of Practice among participants committed to decolonizing health and data systems.
Designed for public health professionals and partners learning together.
Stewards Decolonizing Health Justice
Provides advanced training for leadership and institutional transformation rooted in Indigenous values.
Designed for organizational stewards and system changemakers.
Curriculum Goals:
Activate anti-colonial allyship and accountability.
Address systemic and structural racism, including anti-Indigenous racism.
Integrate decolonizing practices across the public health ecosystem.
Build knowledge, investment, and leadership in decolonizing data and equity.
Identify settler colonialism as a determinant of health inequity.
Through the Decolonizing Academy curriculum, participants develop tools and strategies to recognize, dismantle, and rebuild systems in ways that uphold Indigenous sovereignty, data justice, and collective wellbeing.
Core Offerings
Cultivating a public health workforce equipped to address colonial determinants of health through decolonizing values and relational accountability. Learn more about the trainings in the Multnomah County Report and the Summary of Evaluation.
Trainings
Culturally grounded, evidence-based curricula that strengthen institutional accountability in data and health justice.
Curriculum Development
Offering partnership-based consulting to embed Indigenous values, decolonial methodologies, and healing-justice approaches within institutional policy, research, and practice. See our work in the Washington County Report.
Technical Assistance & Partnerships
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Public Health Paradigm Shift
Definitions: Decolonizing Data
Reciprocity & Relational Accountability
Settler Colonialism as a Determinant of Health Inequity
Learning Modules
Our approach emphasizes:
Collaboration and innovation guided by Indigenous science and wisdom.
Capacity-building and collective action rooted in relational accountability.
Community-driven transformation through the integration of decolonizing principles in public health practice.
Our interventions for Health Justice move data equity initiatives and practices beyond the conventional DEI model.
The Decolonizing Academy expands traditional “equity” frameworks by:
Challenging settler systems that perpetuate health inequities.
Exposing and disrupting institutional cycles of oppression.
Proposing pathways for healing and liberation from internalized settler colonialism.
This first-of-its-kind initiative names & addresses the ongoing impacts of colonialism and offers public health institutions a model for thriving, just, and community-driven futures.
Our culturally tailored curriculum supports decision-makers and analysts in decolonizing harmful systems, healing from the enduring impacts of colonization, and advancing institutional transformation.
Participant Reach & Scope
The Decolonizing Academy has supported:
Biostatisticians, epidemiologists, and program directors from county health departments across Multnomah, Clackamas, Clark, and Washington Counties.
Staff and leadership from the Oregon Health Authority.
Regional coalitions and community-based initiatives advancing health equity and data justice.
“I see now that building relationships with people represented in my data sets is a way I can uphold my responsibilities in the work I do for health and health equity.”
— IHEI Participant, 2023
This broad engagement reflects a growing movement within Oregon and beyond to embed decolonizing frameworks into data governance, policy design, and public health infrastructure.
Looking Forward
Through the Decolonizing Academy, IHEI is advancing a model of public health that is rooted in justice, reciprocity, and Indigenous leadership. Together, we are building the workforce, infrastructure, and shared vision needed to transform health and data systems—creating conditions for collective healing and thriving futures.
