Refocusing Indigenous Health
By Lindsay Waterman
Science and Technology Writer
An article in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health found a strong correlation between social support and health in Canadian indigenous people. It may not seem remarkable, but the finding of this correlation has set an important precedent for research that focuses on the positive.
Since social problems in indigenous communities such as violence and alcohol abuse were first identified, research has dwelt on causes rather than solutions. Instead of studying why indigenous peoples’ health is often poor, this paper examines the factors that improve aboriginal health, focusing on the idea of “thriving” – how the communities flourish in response to adversity.Given the need for solution-oriented research on native health, co-author Professor Grace Egeland of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment at McGill considers this an important and positive change.
“This is an enormous paradigm shift, and one that is very timely and needed,” she said.
Statistics used in the paper were gathered through a survey that measured levels of social support among indigenous people across the country. The idea of social support encompasses four classes of behaviour: positive interaction, emotional support, tangible support, and affection and intimacy. Positive interaction is support gained from interactions in social settings; emotional support is gained from advice and feedback that can help people find solutions to problems; tangible support is material aid; and affection and intimacy equates to caring, love, and empathy. Very high levels of all kinds of social support were reported by most of the 30,000 respondents, and support was strongly correlated to thriving health – especially for those with employment and higher education.
There were, however, intriguing differences between the responses of men and women. Among men, thriving was associated only with emotional support. Among women, all types of social support except intimacy were associated with thriving health. This difference shows that social support has a greater effect on the health of women than men. The authors speculate that this is a result of women’s lack of employment opportunities; without work, women may spend more time forging intense relationships that have the power to make or break their happiness. The authors also raise the possibility that the social roles women take on subject them to more stress than men.
Stress is also an explanation for the negative correlation between thriving and intimacy found among women. Dr. Egeland suspects that although physically intimate relationships can increase health, the survey results indicate that love can be a blessing or a curse.
“Intimacy can be different things for different people depending on the context. The statistics are an indicator that it can be a mixed bag,” she said. She also pointed out that the data implies a need for more research into how context can affect the connections between love and health.
Chantalle Richmond, also an author of the paper and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto in the Department of Public Health Sciences, conducted the research as part of her doctoral thesis at McGill. Until now, thinking on the health of indigenous communities has been illness-centred and, according to Richmond, research on the problems in indigenous communities has only just begun to turn away from the gloomy and fatalistic.
“In recent years, the tone of aboriginal health research has begun to shift in a more positive direction, and this is important for emphasizing the success stories of aboriginal peoples, and for giving hope for future generations,” she said.
The paper breaks the dour cast of thought that has gripped research on indigenous issues for decades, and the approach it takes could have a great impact.
“We really need to look at that aspect [the positive] to help guide policies” said Egeland, referring to the need to refocus the Canadian government’s policies on indigenous health.
