The Use of Mobile Applications to Support Indigenous Youth Wellbeing in Canada

In Canada, Indigenous youth have remained resilient despite being confronted with a wide range of structural and systemic risks, such as long-lasting boil water advisories, over-representation in the child welfare system, and injustices related to land treaties. As people of the land, all disruptions to ecological health are a disruption to personal and community holistic health. Land-based activities and cultural continuity strengthen pathways of perseverance for Indigenous youth (Toombs et al., 2016). For youth, cultural self-expression and personal agency are enhanced with digital platforms, which are well-suited to Indigenous people’s strengths in art, music, and oral forms of passing on knowledge. The field of mental health has turned to e-supports such as mobile applications (apps) that can provide easy-to-access intervention, when needed. To date, resilience interventions have received comparatively less attention than the study of resilience factors and processes. It is timely to review the extant literature on mental health apps with Indigenous youth as, currently, Indigenous apps are in early research stages. Critically reviewing work to date, it is argued that an inclusive and expansive concept of resilience, coherent with Indigenous holistic health views, is well-positioned as a foundation for collaborative resilience app development. To date, few mental health apps have been researched with Indigenous youth, and fewer have been co-constructed with Indigenous youth and their community members. The current literature points to feasibility in terms of readiness or potential usage, and functionality for promoting an integrated cultural and holistic health lens. As this effort may be specific to a particular Indigenous nation’s values, stories, and practices, we highlight the Haudenosaunee conceptual wellness model as one example to guide Indigenous and non-Indigenous science integration, with a current project underway with the JoyPopTM mHealth app for promoting positive mental health and resilience

Examining relationships between climate change and mental health in the Circumpolar North

Indigenous people living in the Circumpolar North rely, to varying degrees, on the natural environment and the resources it provides for their lifestyle and livelihoods. As a consequence, these Northern Indigenous peoples may be more sensitive to global climate change, which has implications for food security, cultural practices, and health and well-being. To date, most research on the human dimensions of climate change in the Circumpolar North has focused on biophysical issues and their consequences, such as changing sea ice regimes affecting travel to hunting grounds or the effects of melting permafrost on built infrastructure. Less is known about how these changes in the environment affect mental health and well-being. In this paper, we build upon existing research, combined with our community-based research and professional mental health practices, to outline some pathways and mechanisms through which climate change may adversely impact mental health and well-being in the Circumpolar North. Our analysis indicates that mental health may be affected by climate change due to changes to land, ice, snow, weather, and sense of place; impacts to physical health; damage to infrastructure; indirect impacts via media, research, and policy; and through the compounding of existing stress and distress. We argue that climate change is likely an emerging mental health challenge for Circumpolar Indigenous populations and efforts to respond through research, policy, and mental health programming should be a priority. We conclude by identifying next steps in research, outlining points for policy, and calling for additional mental health resources that are locally responsive and culturally relevant