How to correctly perform SQL queries in background thread?

I have a ViewPager that has one of the pages containing a List which is populated from the SQLite database. This List is filled by first grabbing a Cursor and then extracting all the various fields into objects that I then add to the List.

However I have also read that I should be performing SQL operations in another thread as to not make the entire app lag.

What is the correct way to do this? My SQLite class is implemented as a singleton so it suffices to call MyDatabaseClass.getInstance(context) when I need access.