Indigenous Health – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States - Laying Claim to a Future that Embraces Health for Us All.

Improving the health of all peoples has been a call across the globe for many decades and unfortunately remains relevant today, particularly given the large disparities in health status of peoples found around the world. Rather than differences in health, or health inequalities, we use a different term, health inequities. This is so as mere differences in health (or inequalities ) can be common in societies and do not necessarily reflect unfair social policies or practices. For example, natural ageing implies older people are more prone to illness. Yet, when differences are systematic, socially produced and unfair, these are considered health inequities. Certainly making judgments on what is systematic, socially produced and unfair, reflects value judgments and merit open debate. We are making explicit in this paper what our judgments are, and the basis for these judgment

Perspective: Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance: an IPY television series using community engagement

The three-part television broadcast Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance was an International Polar Year communications and outreach project concerning Inuit health and wellness. The goal of this project was to engage the Inuit public and others in ‘‘real-time’’ dialogue about health and wellness issues and health research, and to deliver key messages. It was aired live in the Inuit language (with English captions/sub-titles) from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, in May 2009 and simultaneously webcast. Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance used an Inuit communications model for remote communities that was developed in the Arctic in 1994 by the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation/Inuit Communications. In Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance more than 250 people were engaged through the use of a diverse range of methods, including content working groups, stakeholder input, music recordings, pre-recorded community programme videos, live and public screening of the broadcasts, live panels, live audiences, public phone-ins, Skype video-conferencing and real-time online chat, focus groups and e-mail. This article examines the project in light of the principles of ‘‘community engagement’’, demonstrating that Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance exemplifies community engagement in a number of significant ways, including heavily involving community members in the selection of the health theme content of the televised programmes and through the formation of focus groups. Based on challenges encountered during the Qanuqtuurniq - finding the balance project, the article offers recommendations for future projects.Keywords: Inuit communications model; community engagement; indigenous health and wellness; knowledge translation; social change; communications tools(Published: 31 December 2011)Citation: Polar Research 2011, 30, 11514, DOI: 10.3402/polar.v30i0.1151

Distance education for tobacco reduction with Inuit frontline health workers

Background . Tobacco reduction is a major priority in Canadian Inuit communities. However, many Inuit frontline health workers lacked the knowledge, confidence and support to address the tobacco epidemic. Given vast distances, high costs of face-to-face training and previous successful pilots using distance education, this method was chosen for a national tobacco reduction course. Objective . To provide distance education about tobacco reduction to at least 25 frontline health workers from all Inuit regions of Canada. Design . Promising practices globally were assessed in a literature survey. The National Inuit Tobacco Task Group guided the project. Participants were selected from across Inuit Nunangat. They chose a focus from a “menu” of 6 course options, completed a pre-test to assess individual learning needs and chose which community project(s) to complete. Course materials were mailed, and trainers provided intensive, individualized support through telephone, fax and e-mail. The course ended with an open-book post-test. Follow-up support continued for several months post-training. Results . Of the 30 participants, 27 (90%) completed the course. The mean pre-test score was 72% (range: 38–98%). As the post-test was done using open books, everyone scored 100%, with a mean improvement of 28% (range: 2–62%). Conclusions . Although it was often challenging to contact participants through phone, a distance education approach was very practical in a northern context. Learning is more concrete when it happens in a real-life context. As long as adequate support is provided, we recommend individualized distance education to others working in circumpolar regions

Indigenous health - Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the United States - laying claim to a future that embraces health for us all: world health report (2010) background paper, no 33

[extract] Improving the health of all peoples has been a call across the globe for many decades and unfortunately remains an elusive goal today as the large disparities in health status of peoples found around the world have not diminished, and have arguably increased. Rather than referring to absolute differences in health, or health inequalities, we use a different term throughout this paper. We use the term health inequities because mere differences in health (or inequalities ) can be common in societies and do not necessarily reflect unfair social policies or practices. Report reproduced with the permission of the publisher

Indigenous Health: Australia, Canada, Aotearoa, New Zealand and the United States: Laying Claim to a Future that Embraces Health for Us All

World Health Report (2010) Background Paper, No 33. Improving the health of all peoples has been a call across the globe for many decades and unfortunately remains an elusive goal today as the large disparities in health status of peoples found around the world have not diminished, and have arguably increased. Rather than referring to absolute differences in health, or health inequalities, we use a different term throughout this paper. We use the term health inequities because mere differences in health (or "inequalities") can be common in societies and do not necessarily reflect unfair social policies or practices. For example, natural ageing implies older people are more prone to illness - this paper does not review in detail the biologically driven health inequalities that exist, we focus instead on socially driven inequities. Yet, when differences are systematic, socially produced and unfair, these are considered health inequities. Certainly making judgments on what is systematic, socially produced and unfair, reflects value judgments and merits open debate. We are making explicit in this paper what our judgments are, and the basis for these judgments to facilitate scrutiny and debate. The World Health Assembly in 2009 (WHO 2009) passed a resolution endorsed by each of its 193 Member States - that reducing health inequities within and across countries should be a priority for all countries and development partners