Smart Indigenous Youth: The Smart Platform Policy Solution for Systems Integration to Address Indigenous Youth Mental Health.

Tarun Reddy Katapally

doi:10.2196/21155

Abstract

Indigenous youth mental health is an urgent public health issue, which cannot be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. The success of health policies in Indigenous communities is dependent on bottom-up, culturally appropriate, and strengths-based prevention strategies. In order to maximize the effectiveness of these strategies, they need to be embedded in replicable and contextually relevant mechanisms such as school curricula across multiple communities. Moreover, to engage youth in the twenty-first century, especially in rural and remote areas, it is imperative to leverage ubiquitous mobile tools that empower Indigenous youth and facilitate novel Two-Eyed Seeing solutions. Smart Indigenous Youth is a 5-year community trial, which aims to improve Indigenous youth mental health by embedding a culturally appropriate digital health initiative into school curricula in rural and remote Indigenous communities in Canada. This policy analysis explores the benefits of such upstream initiatives. More importantly, this article describes evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers to implementation through the integration of citizen science and community-based participatory research action.

Highlights

Indigenous youth; mental health; school policies; health policy; digital health interventions; mHealth; systems integration; land-based learning; physical activity
The resultant intergenerational trauma continues to influence the health status of Indigenous communities [6,7,8]. This history of dispossession is challenging for Indigenous youth due to a loss of identity, which is reflected in significant health disparities, high suicide rates, and poverty [9]
The participatory approach of Smart Indigenous Youth creates opportunities for scalable and replicable digital health interventions since it is based on the implementation of a global digital citizen science policy [37]

Summary

Introduction

Indigenous youth; mental health; school policies; health policy; digital health interventions; mHealth; systems integration; land-based learning; physical activity. Smart Indigenous Youth embeds a land-based, culturally appropriate, active living digital health initiative into school curricula to promote mental health, minimize substance abuse, and prevent suicide among Indigenous youth (13-18 years old) in rural and remote areas of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Digital Health Interventions Enabling Systems Integration The primary significance of the Smart Indigenous Youth initiative is systems integration (health, education, and sport) http://pediatrics.jmir.org/2020/2/e21155/

Results

Conclusion