Last year, our Collaborative heard from Duke’s Native American Studies Initiative about conducting research with this population. We will follow up on this topic with a conversation with the Director of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Medical Institutional Review Board. The ECBI MIRB was created in 2001 to protect the Tribe and its members, to ensure a mutual and beneficial partnership between the Cherokee people and researchers, and to ensure that all health-related research activities respect, promote, and benefit the health of EBCI Tribal members. Sheena Kanott Lambert, MPH will join us to detail the processes and best practices for researchers who hope to pursue research with the ECBI. She will also share some of the top public health concerns that may be opportunities for research collaboration with the Tribe.
Speaker: Sheena Kanott Lambert, MPH
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Public Health Director, Public Health & Human Service Division
Director of the ECBI Medical IRB
Sheena Kanott Lambert serves as the Public Health Director for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians where she has worked in tribal public health for over a decade.CShe is a proud enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and is an experienced public health professional who holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has been instrumental in ensuring the execution of the three core functions of public health—assessment, policy development, and assurance. She oversees the implementation of tribal public health laws and ordinances, ensuring compliance with various health codes and regulations. Her leadership extends to managing a team of over 50 staff members and 8 managers, while also handling departmental budget preparation, fiscal monitoring, and workforce development.
Sheena chairs the Medical Institutional Review Board (MIRB) for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Her recent accomplishments have been leading the public health team in pursuing National Public Health Accreditation (PHAB) for the 1st time in EBCI history. Currently, only 6 of 574 federally recognized tribes in the country are PHAB accredited. Sheena also spear headed a new emerging public health strategy called ‘public health vending machines” that was launched in September of 2023. Which has increased accessibility, reduced harm, improved public health and provided discreet access to sensitive healthcare products to community members. Sheena’s passion lies in improving population health through culturally tailored, results-based accountability best practice standards. Cultural identity and awareness are extremely important to her, as they provide a critical piece of who we are and how we see ourselves.
The Equity in Research Learning Collaborative series serves as an opportunity for our staff to learn how to make CCFP research more equitable with respect to race, ethnicity, and other forms of diversity at all stages from conceptualization to recruitment to data collection to analysis and reporting of findings.