First Nations Health Authority
- FNHA - Our History, Our Health
Timeline of health and history of BC First Nations, from before European arrival to the modern day. Good place to start.
TRC Call to Action 18
We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to acknowledge that the current state of Aboriginal health in Canada is a direct result of previous Canadian government policies, including residential schools, and to recognize and implement the health-care rights of Aboriginal people as identified in international law, constitutional law, and under the Treaties (TRC, 2015a, p. 2).
Indigenous Health Sciences
Health sciences includes nursing, medicine, nutrition, and other health-related topics. Indigenous health science is based on Indigenous traditional health, ceremony, language, and connection to land.
This research guide is meant to highlight X̱wi7x̱wa's unique resources, and complement existing research guides:
National Collaborating Centre on Indigenous Health
The National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH) is a fantastic place to start researching a topic related to Indigenous health sciences. You can search their publications on many different topics here.
The NCCIH is a national Indigenous organization established in 2005 by the Government of Canada and funded through the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to support First Nations, Inuit, and Métis public health renewal and health equity through knowledge translation and exchange.
- NCCIH PublicationsSearch the NCCIH for publications on a variety of health topics.
- NCCIH Resource LibraryExplores NCCIH resources grouped into topics, including COVID-19, cultural safety, tuberculosis, early childhood, and more.
Selected Resources
Introduction to determinants of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples' health in Canada by Call Number: SA G74 N87 2022ISBN: 9781773383200Publication Date: 2022This critical volume provides an overview of the determinants of health for Indigenous Peoples in Canada and cultivates an understanding of the presence of coloniality in healthcare.
The Science of the Sacred by ISBN: 9781623173364Publication Date: 2019Based on current medical research, Native American and naturopathic doctor Nicole Redvers identifies traditional healing methods developed centuries ago that address modern ailments and medical processes.
Global indigenous health : reconciling the past, engaging the present, animating the future by Call Number: S H45 G56 2018ISBN: 9780816538065Publication Date: 2018Indigenous peoples globally have a keen understanding of their health and wellness through traditional knowledge systems. In the past, traditional understandings of health often intersected with individual, community, and environmental relationships of well-being, creating an equilibrium of living well. Ethics and history, environmental and ecological health, impacts of colonial violence on kinship, and Indigenous knowledge and health activism are all addressed in this volume.
Determinants of indigenous peoples' health in Canada: beyond the social by Call Number: SA G74 D48 2015ISBN: 9781551307329Publication Date: 2015This collection explores the ways that multiple health determinants beyond the social from colonialism to geography, from economy to biology converge to impact the health status of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Aboriginal Health in Canada: Historical, Cultural, and Epidemiological Perspectives by Call Number: James B. Waldram, D. Ann Herring and T. Kue YoungISBN: 9780802087928Publication Date: 2006An overview of Aboriginal peoples in Canada provides a very general background for the non-specialist.
- FNHA - Our History, Our HealthTimeline of health and history of BC First Nations. Good place to start.
- Starvation, Experimentation, Segregation, and Trauma: Words for Reading Indigenous Health HistoryThis article discusses the most important recent contributions in the field of Indigenous health history. This scholarship implicates health and medicine in the complicated work of the long and continuing project of colonization and the building of a white settler nation in Canada.
Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900-50 by Call Number: SAA K45 C36 1998ISBN: 9780774852333Publication Date: 1998Kelm begins by exploring the ways in which Aboriginal bodies were materially affected by Canadian Indian policy, which placed restrictions on fishing and hunting, allocated inadequate reserves, forced children into unhealthy residential schools, and criminalized indigenous healing. Kelm reveals how Aboriginal people were able to resist and alter these forces in order to preserve their own cultural understanding of their bodies, disease, and medicine.
Medicine unbundled : a journey through the minefields of Indigenous health care by ISBN: 9781772031645Publication Date: 2017A shocking exposé of the dark history and legacy of segregated Indigenous health care in Canada.
Inventing the Thrifty Gene by ISBN: 9780887559402Publication Date: 2021Though First Nations communities in Canada have historically lacked access to clean water, affordable food, and equitable healthcare, they have never lacked access to well-funded scientists seeking to study them. Inventing the Thrifty Gene exposes the exploitative nature of settler science with Indigenous subjects, the flawed scientific theories stemming from faulty assumptions of Indigenous decline and disappearance, as well as the severe inequities in Canadian healthcare that persist even today.
Separate beds : a history of Indian hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s by Call Number: WX11.DC2 L977 2016ISBN: 9781442613867Publication Date: 2016
- Enhancing health care equity with Indigenous populations: evidence-based strategies from an ethnographic studyStructural violence shapes the health of Indigenous peoples globally, and is deeply embedded in history, individual and institutional racism, and inequitable social policies and practices. Many Indigenous communities have flourished, however, the impact of colonialism continues to have profound health effects for Indigenous peoples in Canada and internationally. Despite increasing evidence of health status inequities affecting Indigenous populations, health services often fail to address health and social inequities as routine aspects of health care delivery. In this paper, we discuss an evidence-based framework and specific strategies for promoting health care equity for Indigenous populations.
- Colonial Geographies: Indigenous Access to Primary Care in British ColumbiaThis article considers the demonstrated lack of access to primary health services in remote Indigenous communities in British Columbia as a form of structural exclusion shaped by the history of settler colonialism.
An introduction to indigenous health and healthcare in Canada: bridging health and healing by Call Number: SA D68 N77 2022ISBN: 9780826164124Publication Date: 2022This textbook for Canadian nursing and allied health students explores the major health issues of Indigenous populations and how to improve their overall health.
BC-Based Organizations
- First Nations Health AuthorityThe FNHA is the first and only provincial First Nations health authority in Canada.
- First Nations Health CouncilThe First Nations Health Council (FNHC) is a provincial-level political and advocacy organization that represents — and is accountable to — First Nations in BC.
- BC Office of Indigenous HealthThe Office of Indigenous Health (the Office) aims to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples in B.C.
National Organizations
- National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous HealthThe National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH) is a national Indigenous organization established in 2005 by the Government of Canada and funded through the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to support First Nations, Inuit, and Métis public health renewal and health equity through knowledge translation and exchange.
- Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association
The official formation of the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association (C.I.N.A.) was in 1975 as Registered Nurses, Indian and Inuit Association of Canada. The association's founders initially came together to pool their skills, education and cultural heritages to ultimately improve what they witnessed first hand as Indigenous nurses - the appalling overall health conditions faced by their own people.