Indigenous data and health: critical approaches to ‘race’/ethnicity and Indigenous data governance

Abstract

‘Race’/ethnicity data have become increasingly institutionalised within research on Indigenous health. While these data are important to monitoring the differential distribution of health risks and benefits in racialised societies, their uncritical and undertheorised use can perpetuate harmful biologically deterministic and essentialist approaches to Indigenous health. In addition, narratives of Indigenous health are often still shaped by colonial logics, with Indigenous data rights, priorities and governance overlooked or ignored. Researchers need to critique the use of ‘race’/ethnicity concepts and data in Indigenous health research. This requires an explicit shift away from describing ‘race’/ethnicity as ‘risk factors’ to examining processes by which ‘race’/ethnicity become meaningful in relation to health outcomes for Indigenous communities. In addition, researchers need to consider how Indigenous rights to health data are recognised, including the application of frameworks or principles of Indigenous data sovereignty.