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Poor health among indigenous peoples a question of cultural loss as well as poverty
July 06, 2009Canadian and Australian researchers discuss underlying causes of health disparities
The health problems of Indigenous peoples around the world are intimately tied to a number of unique factors, such as colonization, globalization, migration, and loss of land, language and culture. These factors remain even after the "typical" social problems facing the poor, such as inadequate housing, unemployment, and low education levels are addressed, according to Dr. Malcolm King, lead author of a paper to be published tomorrow in the Lancet, a prestigious UK medical journal.
Based at the University of Alberta, and currently Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health, Dr. King, along with coauthors Dr. Alexandra Smith (University of Toronto) and Dr. Michael Gracey (Unity of First People of Australia in Perth, Australia), wrote the paper to provide health professionals and policy makers with insights into the special culturally based needs and social context of Indigenous peoples.
Drawing on a growing body of research work done in cooperation with Aboriginal Peoples across Canada, Dr. King highlights a frame of reference where wellness involves a balance between the person, his/her family, community, and environment.
"Wellbeing for Aboriginal Peoples is more than physical health or absence of disease, it's about 'being alive well' or 'mno bmaadis' as they say in the Anishinabek language," says King. "All four elements of life - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual - are traditionally represented in the four directions of the medicine wheel, and traditional healing often implicates the whole community, cleansing the environment around a person as well as his or her body."
"That's why factors like retention of Aboriginal languages, cultural practices, self determination, and respect for Elders is so important," King continues. "And that's why we have so much to do to repair the damage done by so many disruptive assimilationist practices in the past, such as cutting off children from their families at residential schools, or suppression of cultural practices that conflicted with European ideas."
Programs to address these issues should be viewed as complex clinical interventions, Dr. King says, with health researchers, social scientists and clinicians working together hand in hand with Indigenous peoples to identify the most pressing needs and most appropriate and workable solutions.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Drawing on a growing body of research work done in cooperation with Aboriginal Peoples across Canada, Dr. King highlights a frame of reference where wellness involves a balance between the person, his/her family, community, and environment.
"Wellbeing for Aboriginal Peoples is more than physical health or absence of disease, it's about 'being alive well' or 'mno bmaadis' as they say in the Anishinabek language," says King. "All four elements of life - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual - are traditionally represented in the four directions of the medicine wheel, and traditional healing often implicates the whole community, cleansing the environment around a person as well as his or her body."
"That's why factors like retention of Aboriginal languages, cultural practices, self determination, and respect for Elders is so important," King continues. "And that's why we have so much to do to repair the damage done by so many disruptive assimilationist practices in the past, such as cutting off children from their families at residential schools, or suppression of cultural practices that conflicted with European ideas."
Programs to address these issues should be viewed as complex clinical interventions, Dr. King says, with health researchers, social scientists and clinicians working together hand in hand with Indigenous peoples to identify the most pressing needs and most appropriate and workable solutions.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Indigenous Peoples Current Events and Indigenous Peoples News RSSResearchers Hail Innovative Plan to Save Rainforest, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
An innovative proposal by the Ecuadorian government to protect an untouched, oil rich region of Amazon rainforest is a precedent-setting and potentially economically viable approach, says a team of environmental researchers from the University of Maryland, the World Resources Institute and Save America's Forests.
New monkey discovered in Brazil
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today the discovery of a new monkey in a remote region of the Amazon in Brazil.
CU-Boulder study shows Maya intensively cultivated manioc 1,400 years ago
A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system -- a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago.
Scientists aim to bring indigenous people into climate change monitoring and policy
Scientists at the Missouri Botanical Garden are calling for the inclusion of indigenous peoples around the world in helping monitor the effects of global climate change and develop policy.
Indigenous peoples at world summit to share climate change observations, coping techniques
With the first climate change-related relocation of an Inuit village already underway, some 400 Indigenous People and observers from 80 nations are convening in Alaska for a UN-affiliated conference April 20-24 to discuss ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Wild grass became maize crop more than 8,700 years ago
The earliest physical evidence for domesticated maize, what some cultures call corn, dates to at least 8,700 calendar years ago, and it was probably domesticated by indigenous peoples in the lowland areas of southwestern Mexico, not the highland areas.
Post-pandemic reforestation in New World helped trigger Little Ice Age, Stanford researchers say
The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement.
Forest peoples' rights key to reducing emissions from deforestation
Unless based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities, efforts by rich countries to combat climate change by funding reductions in deforestation in developing countries will fail, and could even unleash a devastating wave of forest loss, cultural destruction and civil conflict, warned a leading group of forestry and development experts meeting in Oslo this week.
Oil and gas projects in western Amazon threaten biodiversity and indigenous peoples
The western Amazon, home to the most biodiverse and intact rainforest left on Earth, may soon be covered with oil rigs and pipelines.
Y chromosome study sheds light on Athapaskan migration to southwest US
A large-scale genetic study of native North Americans offers new insights into the migration of a small group of Athapaskan natives from their subarctic home in northwest North America to the southwestern United States. The migration, which left no known archaeological trace, is believed to have occurred about 500 years ago.
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