Outreach: Food Wisdom Repository

This project undertakes outreach activities to further development of, and facilitate access to, a public knowledge repository of information on Indigenous nutritional health. The Research for Indigenous Community Health RICH Center at the University of Minnesota is building a curated database of reliable information resources relevant to Native nutritional health, accessed via a public website. Drawing from multiple sources of 'food wisdom'including experiential, Indigenous community-based, and crossdisciplinary academic knowledgethis searchable repository provides a directory of experts, a bibliography of publications, and information on relevant projects, programs, and resources. Supported by a gift from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community's Seeds of Native Health initiative, and guided by first-round needs assessment, the RICH Center has built a proof-of-concept test site for the repository. The proposed project will further development of the test site into a working prototype and maximize its usability, through the collection, analysis, synthesis, and application of user research data. Early in the award period, the Project Director and Outreach Associate will complete needs assessment and user testing of the proof-ofconcept site with selected target usershealth workers and 133s working in/with Native communities to improve health through food and nutritionand analyze and summarize the data collected. Guided by the External Consultants and in consultation with UMN's Usability Services staff, the Project Director and Outreach Associate then will synthesize this new data with the results of previous needs assessments and user testing, create composite user profiles, and set user-centered development goals and design principles. The profiles, goals, and principles will guide additional content development and revisions to database structure and interface design while completing the site prototype.