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NUNAVUT - Next spring, three unique television shows on Inuit health will be broadcast live around the territory, and viewers will be able to call in with their concerns.

As part of the Canadian government's International Polar Year fund, the Ajunnginiq Centre at the National Aboriginal Health Organization has been given $400,000 to broadcast three separate two-hour call-in television shows.

The aim is to get health information out to all the communities, as well as to receive feedback from the centre's recent studies and to field health-related questions from viewers.

"We're very excited," said Diane Kinnon, director of the Ajunnginiq Centre. "It's for sure the largest communications project we've taken on."

In the past two years or so, in working with the National Inuit Youth Council, the centre has been urged to get off the printed page, said Kinnon.

"In the North, both radio and television are primary ways of communicating," she said.

Targeted for broadcast in May 2009, the programs will be aired in Inuktitut, with captions in English, on the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network North.

The centre is hoping to receive contemporary views on health issues from Inuit, along with a traditional knowledge component, said Kinnon.

Each of the three programs will have a specific focus.

One program will deal with Inuit youth resilience and coping skills, while another will focus on Inuit men's emotional, physical and mental health.

The third will look at Inuit midwifery and maternal/child health.

"They have been identified as three key issues," said Kinnon.

The centre recently completed a survey of men's health needs and concerns, which it will publish this fall. The findings will also be presented in the broadcast.

"We hope that a lot of men call in and react with their concerns," said Kinnon.

Also, for the youth resilience program, the centre asked elders for input on what youth could do to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and the centre is hoping to get youth reaction from these findings during the broadcast.

The programs will also present vignettes shot in communities around the North.

Rhoda Hiqniq, a community wellness worker in Gjoa Haven, said she thinks the programs are a good idea because, in her experience, people in communities have to take it upon themselves to go out and get health information.

Unless someone is actively seeking information, they will not get it because nothing comes directly into a person's home, she said.

"When I'm home, we don't receive anything by mail for health issues," she said.

Along with the live TV broadcast, the programs will be webcast on the National Inuit Youth Council website, and DVDs will be made of the programs afterwards and distributed to health centres, schools and Inuit organizations across the North.

The live component will be broadcast from Iqaluit.