Why Indigenous communities are taking COVID-19 measures into their own hands – Folio

Local responses to pandemic are a necessity to protect people at higher risk of infectious diseases—and a strong assertion of sovereignty, says U of A expert.

On the Government of Canada’s Indigenous Services web page, the first piece of information about COVID-19 is advice on how to wash your hands if you are under a drinking water advisory.

This highlights the multiple factors that influence Indigenous health outcomes in times of disease, said Jessica Kolopenuk, a researcher in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies.

“The reality is that the ways pandemics are experienced at local and regional levels are shaped by national and even global forces of power: colonialism and imperialism,” she said.

To understand the impact COVID-19 can have on Indigenous populations, the social, environmental and economic factors that exist simultaneously with disease—and worsen it—need to be taken into account.

Read More: https://www.folio.ca/why-indigenous-communities-are-taking-covid-19-measures-into-their-own-hands/