Indigenous Health Equity And Wellness

This book focuses on promoting health equity and addressing health disparities among Indigenous peoples of the United States (U.S.) and associated Territories in the Pacific Islands and Caribbean. It provides an overview of the current state of health equity across social, physical, and mental health domains to provide a preliminary understanding of the state of Indigenous health equity. Part 1 of the book traces the promotive, protective, and risk factors related to Indigenous health equity. Part 2 reports promising pathways to achieving and transcending health equity through the description of interventions that address and promote wellness related to key outcomes. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.

Minority status in the United States often accompanies diminished access to education, employment, and subsequently health care. This volume explores factors that have contributed to health disparities among racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Focused on developing strategies for understanding these disparities and promoting wellness in minority communities, the authors highlight social forces such as racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, and homophobia, which continue to influence not only access to and quality of care but also perception and trust of health care professionals. The authors identify several common themes, including the importance of communication, intentional and unintentional discriminatory structures, and perhaps most significantly, the role of culturally relevant learning sites. This is the 142nd volume of the Jossey Bass series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for its depth of coverage, it explores issues of common interest to instructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in a broad range of education settings, such as colleges and universities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, and museums.

Accounting for almost two thirds of the country's land-mass, Northern Canada is a vast region, host to rich natural resources and a diverse cultural heritage shared across Indigenous and non-indigenous residents. In this book, Rebecca Schiff and Helle M ller analyse health and healthcare in Northern Canada from a perspective that acknowledges the unique strengths, resilience, and innovation of northerners, while also addressing the challenges aggravated by contemporary manifestations of colonialism. Old and new forms of colonial programs and policies continue to create health and healthcare disparities in the North, which has had a profound impact on northerners. Divided into three sections, Health and Healthcare in Northern Canada paints a broad picture of primary issues that northern peoples face. Several chapters are written by northerners and utilize case studies, quotes, photographs, and other materials to highlight voices and perspectives of people living in northern Canada. In order to maintain resilience, improve the positive outcomes of health determinants, and diminish negative stereotypes, we must ensure that northerners - and their cultures, values, strengths and leadership - are at the centre of the ongoing work to achieve social justice and health equity.

Drawing attention to the ways in which creative practices are essential to the health, well-being, and healing of Indigenous peoples, The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being addresses the effects of artistic endeavour on the “good life”, or mino-pimatisiwin in Cree, which can be described as the balanced interconnection of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being. In this interdisciplinary collection, Indigenous knowledges inform an approach to health as a wider set of relations that are central to well-being, wherein artistic expression furthers cultural continuity and resilience, community connection, and kinship to push back against forces of fracture and disruption imposed by colonialism. The need for healing—not only individuals but health systems and practices—is clear, especially as the trauma of colonialism is continually revealed and perpetuated within health systems. The field of Indigenous health has recently begun to recognize the fundamental connection between creative expression and well-being. This book brings together scholarship by humanities scholars, social scientists, artists, and those holding experiential knowledge from across Turtle Island to add urgently needed perspectives to this conversation. Contributors embrace a diverse range of research methods, including community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous youth, artists, Elders, and language keepers. The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being demonstrates the healing possibilities of Indigenous works of art, literature, film, and music from a diversity of Indigenous peoples and arts traditions. This book will resonate with health practitioners, community members, and any who recognize the power of art as a window, an entryway to access a healthy and good life.

The health disparities affecting Indigenous peoples in Canada might well be understood as a national epidemic. Although progress has been made in the last decade towards both understanding and ameliorating Indigenous health inequalities, very little research or writing has expanded a social determinants of health framework to account for the unique histories and present realities of Indigenous peoples in this country. This timely edited collection addresses this significant knowledge gap, exploring the ways that multiple health determinants beyond the social-from colonialism to geography, from economy to biology-converge to impact the health status of Indigenous peoples in Canada. This unique collection, comprised largely of contributions by Indigenous authors, offers the voices and expertise of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis writers from across Canada. The multitude of health determinants of Indigenous peoples are considered in a selection of chapters that range from scholarly papers by research experts in the field, to reflective essays by Indigenous leaders. Appropriate throughout a range of disciplines, including Health Studies, Indigenous Studies, Public and Population Health, Community Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work, this engaging text broadens the social determinants of health framework to better understand health inequality. Most importantly, it does so by placing front and center the voices and experiences of Indigenous peoples.