Research in Focus: Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples Using Aboriginal Ways of Knowledge and Implementation Science to Address Obesity in First Nations, Inuit and Metis Populations

Abstract

Obesity in First Nations, Inuit and Metis populations is mediated by the usual determinants of health but more specifically through indigenous specific factors such as cultural dislocation, racism, loss of language and connection to the land, environmental deprivation, and spiritual, emotional, and mental disconnectedness. Being isolated from aspects of this identity is widely understood to have a negative effect on Indigenous health. According to self-reported data available from the Canadian Community Health Survey, the First Nations’ Regional Health Survey, and the Aboriginal Peoples’ Survey, over one-third (36.0%) of on-reserve First Nation adults are estimated to be obese. Long-term weight reduction has been elusive because the social context in which many Aboriginal People live does not support healthy eating or physical activity. Small-scale interventions focusing on behaviour modification have had little success. Community and system level interventions aimed at increasing access to healthy, affordable or traditional foods might have some potential. These interventions are challenging to implement and must be thoroughly researched to measure an impact at the community level. The CIHR Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples Initiative will fund research to develop a better understanding of how to implement and scale up interventions and programs that will address Aboriginal four exemplar areas of which obesity is one.