Well-being Of Aboriginal People Research Articles

Creating "a Safe Place to Go": Yarning With Health Workers About Stroke Recovery Care for Aboriginal Stroke Survivors-A Qualitative Study.

Stroke affects Aboriginal people at disproportionate rates compared to other populations in Australia. Aboriginal peoples are less likely to receive a timely stroke diagnosis, or timely culturally responsive treatment, as there are very few stroke resources and recovery plans that have been developed by Aboriginal peoples for Aboriginal peoples. Understanding how to develop and implement culturally responsive stroke care requires research approaches that are informed by and with Aboriginal people. A qualitative Indigenous research methodology including "yarning" was undertaken to understand the experiences of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health workers from nine health services providing stroke rehabilitation and recovery support to Aboriginal people living within the participating communities. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach driven by an Indigenous research approach. Yarns revealed three themes: (i) the role of culturally safe health environments to support stroke survivors, their family, and health workers; and how (ii) complicated, under-resourced systems impede the capacity to support stroke survivors; and (iii) collaborative and adaptive practices prevent people "falling through the cracks." This study highlights the need to scrutinize the cultural safety of health care, current health systems, workforce, and culture and how these influence the capacity of health workers to provide care that is responsive to the individual needs of Aboriginal stroke survivors and their families. These learnings will inform the co-design of a culturally responsive stroke recovery care strategy to improve the recovery experience and health and well-being of Aboriginal people and their families living with stroke.

Aboriginal Population and Climate Change in Australia: Implications for Health and Adaptation Planning.

The health impacts of climate are widely recognised, and extensive modelling is available on predicted changes to climate globally. The impact of these changes may affect populations differently depending on a range of factors, including geography, socioeconomics and culture. This study reviewed current evidence on the health risks of climate change for Australian Aboriginal populations and linked Aboriginal demographic data to historical and projected climate data to describe the distribution of climate-related exposures in Aboriginal compared to non-Aboriginal populations in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The study showed Aboriginal populations were disproportionately exposed to a range of climate extremes in heat, rainfall and drought, and this disproportionate exposure was predicted to increase with climate change over the coming decades. Aboriginal people currently experience higher rates of climate-sensitive health conditions and socioeconomic disadvantages, which will impact their capacity to adapt to climate change. Climate change may also adversely affect cultural practices. These factors will likely impact the health and well-being of Aboriginal people in NSW and inhibit measures to close the gap in health between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations. Climate change, health and equity need to be key considerations in all policies at all levels of government. Effective Aboriginal community engagement is urgently needed to develop and implement climate adaptation responses to improve health and social service preparedness and secure environmental health infrastructure such as drinking water supplies and suitably managed social housing. Further Aboriginal-led research is required to identify the cultural impacts of climate change on health, including adaptive responses based on Aboriginal knowledges.

Applying an authentic partnership approach to facilitate optimal health of Aboriginal children.

The aim of this development paper is to inform the ongoing implementation of the partnership approach with Aboriginal families in Australia. As almost all Community Health Nurses employed by the Health Department of Western Australia, Country Health Service are non-Aboriginal, there are a number of factors that may, potentially, limit their capacity to work effectively with the primary caregivers of Aboriginal children.Historically, much that has been written about the health and development of Aboriginal people in Australia has been negative and derogatory with wide criticism for their non-participation with health services and healthy lifestyle activities. Not only has this "deficit discourse" approach proved to be unhelpful in terms of improving the health and well-being of Aboriginal people but also there is mounting evidence that it has been detrimental to mental and physical health and capacity to achieve autonomy in all aspects of life.In response to the voices of Aboriginal people, the partnership approach to care has been promoted for use by Community Health Nurses in Western Australia. However, the implementation of the approach is not always genuinely strength based, and it does not always focus on mutual goal setting within authentic partnership relationships. The partnership approach has the potential to improve the lives of Aboriginal people if it is implemented with appropriate cultural sensitivity, shared responsibility, dignity and respect.

A Collaborative Approach To Engaging Aboriginal People In Their Health

We must invest in our Aboriginal population and take a holistic view of their health incorporating not only physical, but psychological, cultural, social and emotional wellbeing. Indigenous Australians have hospitalisation and death rates with cardiovascular disease (CVD) as the underlying cause at twice the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. For instance, in 2015–16, there were over 1.1 million indigenous Australians hospitalized with CVD related events, and one in three deaths were due to CVD. A collaborative partnership between West Australian Aboriginal Health Strategy Directors and the Training Centre in subacute care (TRACS WA) has developed a cultural training module addressing Aboriginal Person-Centered Care. This aims to ensure WA Health Service Providers consider the broader social and cultural determinants of Aboriginal health and well-being, including their cardiovascular health. We adopted a strengths-based approach which values the extremely high levels of emotional and social intelligence held by Aboriginal peoples. Acknowledging their wisdom, resilience, courage and strong cultural identities, the training module uses authentic story telling of Aboriginal people's experience of healthcare and is designed to engage health professionals of all disciplines to develop a deep and lasting empathy for Aboriginal people. Facilitators from TRACS WA, working and walking alongside Aboriginal facilitators aim to break down barriers within the WA health system to better meet the CVD healthcare needs of Aboriginal people. Challenging and reducing unsafe practices, improving engagement and compassion in care delivery shifts the power and ownership to the Aboriginal consumer and their care givers and positively impacts the health and well-being of Aboriginal people.

Indigenous Healing and Seeking Safety: A Blended Implementation Project for Intergenerational Trauma and Substance Use Disorders

Background: As with many Indigenous groups around the world, Aboriginal communities in Canada face significant challenges with trauma and substance use disorders (SUD). Treatment for intergenerational trauma (IGT) and SUD is challenging due to the complexity of both disorders. There is strong evidence that strengthening cultural identity, incorporating traditional healing practices, encouraging community integration, and inviting political empowerment can enhance and improve mental health and substance use disorders in Aboriginal populations. Methods: The purpose of this study was to explore whether the blending of Indigenous traditional healing practices and the Western treatment model Seeking Safety, which is used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and SUD, resulted in a reduction of IGT symptoms and SUD. Twelve Aboriginal men and 12 Aboriginal women were recruited into this study—all of whom resided in Northern Ontario and self-identified as having experienced IGT and SUD. The Indigenous Healing and Seeking Safety (IHSS) group (conducted as sharing circles) were offered twice a week over 13 weeks. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews as well as an end-of-treatment focus group. A qualitative thematic analysis was performed to depict themes. Results: Out of the 24 Aboriginal people who entered the program, nine women and eight men completed the program. Analysis from the qualitative thematic data identified four core themes. Furthermore, the sharing circles and the presence of Elders and Aboriginal helpers increased the benefits of the blended approach. Conclusion: Evidence from this qualitative study suggests that it could be beneficial to incorporate Indigenous traditional healing practices into Seeking Safety to enhance the health and well-being of Aboriginal people with IGT and SUD. This implementation project, if replicated, has the potential to enhance the health and well-being of Aboriginal peoples. The use of blended implementation can be an important option for clinicians and health-care professionals when working with Aboriginal populations. Only the qualitative results will be discussed in this article; quantitative results will be published separately.

Impact of Indigenous Healing and Seeking Safety on Intergenerational Trauma and Substance Use in an Aboriginal Sample

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore whether the blending of traditional Indigenous healing practices and a mainstream treatment model, Seeking Safety, resulted in a reduction of Intergenerational Trauma (IGT) symptoms and Substance Use Disorders (SUD). Methods: A mixed-methods design was used to evaluate the impact of a 13 week Indigenous Healing and Seeking Safety implementation project with one group of 12 Aboriginal women and one group of 12 Aboriginal men (n=24). Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted at the end of treatment. Data were collected pre- and post-implementation using the following assessment tools: the Trauma Symptom Check-list-40 (TSC-40), the Addiction Severity Index-Lite (ASI-Lite), the Historical Loss Scale (HLS), and the Historical Loss Associated Symptom Scale (HLASS). The effectiveness of the new program was assessed using paired t-tests, with the TSC-40 as the main outcome. Results: A total of 17 participants completed the study. All demonstrated improvement in the trauma symptoms, as measured by the TSC-40, with a mean decrease of 23.9 (SD=6.4, p=0.001) points, representing a 55% improvement from baseline. Furthermore, all six TSC-40 subscales demonstrated a significant decrease (anxiety, depression, sexual abuse trauma index, sleep disturbance, dissociation and sexual problems). Historical grief was significantly reduced and historical loss showed a trend on reduction. Substance use did not change significantly as measured by the ASI-Lite alcohol composite score and drug composite score, but one third of the sample did not report substance use at baseline and thus these variables were underpowered. Satisfaction was high. Participants who dropped out prior to session 10 were more severe than those who stayed in treatment. Conclusion: Evidence from this mixed-methods study indicates that blending Indigenous Healing with the Seeking Safety model was beneficial in reducing trauma symptoms and historical grief. The combination of traditional and mainstream healing methods has the potential to enhance the health and well-being of Aboriginal people.

What health services within rural communities tell us about Aboriginal people and Aboriginal health

There is a growing body of literature within social and cultural geography that explores notions of place, space, culture, race and identity. When health services in rural communities are explored using these notions, it can lead to multiple ways of understanding the cultural meanings inscribed within health services and how they can be embedded with an array of politics. For example, health services can often reflect the symbolic place that each individual holds within that rural community. Through the use of a rural health service case study, this paper will demonstrate how the physical sites and appearances of health services can act as social texts that convey messages of belonging and welcome, or exclusion and domination. They can also produce and reproduce power and control relations. In this way, they can influence the ways that Aboriginal people engage in health service environments–either as places where Aboriginal people feel welcome, comfortable, secure and culturally safe and happy to use the health service, or as places where they utilise the service provided with a great deal of effort, angst and energy. It is important to understand how these complex notions play out in rural communities if the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people is going to be addressed.

Disrupted Attachments: A Social Context Complex Trauma Framework and the Lives of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

“Disrupted attachments” describes multiple levels on which the historic and contemporary assaults on Aboriginal Peoples in Canada have resonated. Not only have the policies of colonialism expressly aimed to sever the attachment of Canada’s First Nations to their lands, customs, cultures, modes of self-governance, languages and ways of life, but the traumatic impact of these disrupted attachments have reverberated through both the communities and through the individual lives of Aboriginal Peoples in this country historically and today. The new and more expansive conceptualization of “complex trauma” has, as one of its core and defining features, alterations in relationships with one’s sense of self, as well as alterations to relationships with others. We reframe the idea of “alterations” in relationships to that of “harms” to relationships to self and others, and situate these harms within the insights of attachment theory. In this paper, we explicate a social context complex trauma framework, building on insights from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, to provide a fuller development of the pervasive and developmental impacts of trauma. In developing our conceptualization of a social context complex trauma framework, we draw on the foundational constructs from trauma theory, from attachment theory, and from the insights of the literature on historical trauma, as well as the interdisciplinary research literature on the health and well-being of Aboriginal Peoples in order to advance a developmental perspective situated within a political analysis of social contexts of injustice and inequality. We also point to some directions for healing and transformation efforts. Most importantly, we speak to the need for a strengths-based trauma model and approach, which identifies and expands the resiliencies of the Aboriginal Peoples.

Aboriginal Well-Being: Canada’s Continuing Challenge (review)

Reviewed by: Aboriginal Well-Being: Canada’s Continuing Challenge James Frideres Jerry White, Dan Beavon, and Nicholas Spence, eds. Aboriginal Well-Being: Canada’s Continuing Challenge. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, 2007. 246 pp. $36.95 sc. The volume is one of a series of publications produced by the Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium which is housed at the University of Western Ontario and headed by Dr. Jerry White. While the goal of this book is to provide the reader with information on the health and well-being of Aboriginal people in Canada, it approaches the topic from a methodological perspective. Put another way, while the reader will certainly learn about the well-being of Aboriginal people, the authors are really focused on trying to develop appropriate, comparative, and reliable measures of well-being. There is some contextual information about Aboriginal people in Canada, but the authors are more focused on developing a set of indicators. Why do I mention this? I do so because the reader needs to be forewarned so that s/he not approach the manuscript with expectations that will not be fulfilled. However, it is an ambitious volume concerned with the analysis of the well-being of Aboriginal [End Page 218] groups in Canada as well as around the world. The work is truly exceptional on many counts. The book’s wide comparative breadth, the methodological sophistication, the up-to-date references, and the critical analysis of the data make this book a notable accomplishment. The book is a wonderful compilation of information regarding the well-being of Aboriginal people in Canada and in other “settler” societies. Given that the chapters are written by different authors, who in turn use different measures of “well-being,” specific comparisons are difficult. Nevertheless, data from the census, administrative units, e.g., Indian Affairs, and other sources are used to empirically assess the concept of well-being. Throughout the book, the authors acknowledge these methodological issues and focus on patterns and trends that illuminate the results. The authors, having access to data that might not otherwise be available to other researchers, make the best use of their databases as they mine the data to its fullest. The volume is comprised of ten chapters placed within three parts. The first part introduces the concept of “well-being” and introduces general theoretical and methodological issues that researchers have to deal with when measuring the concept. This section provides an excellent theoretical discussion of the concept of well-being, why it is important, why it needs to be measured at different levels, and the implications of introducing such a concept into the language when dealing with Aboriginal people. Part 2 looks at a Registered Indian Human Development Index and considers changes that have taken place between 1981 and 2001. This section also examines sex equality and well-being. Finally, it provides a four-country (Australia, Canada, United States, New Zealand) comparison of Aboriginal people’s well-being. Part 3 moves to a more macro level of analysis and focuses on developing a community well-being index. This section begins by outlining what a community well-being index is, why it is important, and how one might empirically measure it. An initial application of the model is used for measuring community well-being of Inuit. Later, a comparison of well-being in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities is provided. The penultimate chapter assesses the impact of specific claim settlement on community well-being and finds little effect. The final chapter reviews the empirical results presented in the preceding chapters and provides the reader with an assessment and critique of the objective and subjective dimensions of the concept “community well-being.” While space prevents a detailed discussion of each chapter, some of them deserve special mention. The comparative chapters are particularly important in that they allow both intra-group comparisons as well as inter-group comparisons. For example, one chapter provides a comparison of well-being between First Nations communities from one time period to another. In another case the authors compare Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Canada. I might add that [End Page 219] Indian Affairs, at one point in time, provided similar comparisons, but...

A Global Model and National Network for Aboriginal Health Research Excellence

Like Dr. J.A. Amyot, a pioneer in preventive medicine, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health (CIHR-IAPH) is a pioneer in Aboriginal health research. We are one of the 13 founding Institutes of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Our vision is to enhance the well-being of First Nations, Inuit and Metis people in Canada by supporting innovative research programs that are based on scientific excellence and community cooperation. Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of Aboriginal people. To do this, we must build research capacity among Aboriginal communities in Canada and in indigenous communities around the world by forming alliances and partnerships in the global health research arena. Our goals are ambitious. Yet we are faced with many challenges.

Magnification of atmospheric mercury deposition to polar regions in springtime: The link to tropospheric ozone depletion chemistry

Mercury—in the chemical/physical forms present in the biosphere—is a persistent, toxic, bioaccumulative pollutant that is dispersed throughout the environment on a global scale, mainly via the atmosphere. It is among the “heavy metals” for which the natural biogeochemical cycle has been perturbed by a wide range of human activities, including fossil‐fuel combustion and waste incineration. Results of our recent measurements of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), as well as total particulate‐phase mercury (TPM) concentrations in Arctic air, ‘total Hg’ concentrations in Arctic snow, and tropospheric BrO concentrations from an earth‐orbiting‐satellite platform are presented and discussed. Findings of our research, and the conclusions derived therefrom, are important for environmental protection as well as the health and well‐being of aboriginal people in Arctic circumpolar nations.