Aboriginal Communities

Sherwood & Edwards (2006) cite that the worldview of health is in direct conflict with the Indigenous worldview and the way health and wellbeing are considered by Aboriginal people. Aboriginal health, care and wellbeing is not just the physical well-being of the individual but includes the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the individual and community (Sherwood & Edwards, 2006). Rather than focusing on isolating the specific cause of illness, health initiatives for Aboriginal communities look beyond the traditional biomedical model and adopt a model that incorporates the broader social determinants of health, which focus on Aboriginal societal structures and psychosocial factors (Dudgeon, 2014). Hence Aboriginal people view health differently, their concerns for health issues are diverse requiring a holistic and informed response.

Aboriginal peoples of Canada have suffered exponentially throughout the entirety of history and proceed to do so in modern society. Much of the continued suffrage of aboriginal peoples is as a result of the Sixties Scoop and the Residential School System, as well as the lack of resources available to them. This has wreaked extensive havoc on the mental health of Aboriginal peoples, and has left excessive amounts of stigma and racism attached to Aboriginal Peoples, explicitly seen in the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

The indigenous people of Japan and Russia are called Ainu. Ainu is also referred as Aino, Aynu and Ezo in ancient text. The history showed that they spoke Ainu language and other varieties of languages. They lived mostly in Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin. The people who still called them Ainu live in those regions. The exact number of the population of Ainu is still unknown. There are confusing and conflicting issues with Ainu due to mixed heritages, which result in hiding their identities. There is much intermarriage in Japan, which causes the loss of identities of real Ainu. The official estimates of the population of Ainu are

One of the great untold truths of Australian history has been the courageous contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to the Australian Defence Force. For decades this contribution was unacknowledged and their sacrifices were unmentioned at official ceremonies.” Alistair Nicholson, Reconciliation Australia (2014).

The social determinants of health are arguably more important than the biological determinants of health in determining what the health of an individual will look like through their lifetime. There are many social determinants of health such as culture, disability, income, education and social environment but these detrainments do not impact a person’s life individually. Social determinants do not work in isolation rather they indicate that a number of factors and or determinants of heath determine the health and the quality of life of individuals; in Richard Wagmese’s Ragged Company, social environments and culture are two social determinants of health that work off

From a sociological lens, sociological theories can be applied to the drug usage of Aboriginal people. According to the structural functionalist theory, drug abuse is a response to weakening of societal norms. In relation to Aboriginal peoples, the absence of bond between some Aboriginal people and society, may be one reason why drug use is a common occurrence among people of Indigenous backgrounds. The anomie in some Aboriginal people who use drugs may exist at the individual level, which can be from biological or physiological reasons and/or psychological reasons. The norms created by society, the perception that doing drug is bad, may not be felt by some people, thus there is a weakening of a consensus of what is considered acceptable.

The Canadian health system aims to provide equal health for all and although in recent years, general healthcare services to Aboriginal peoples have improved, Aboriginal peoples still experience poorer health outcomes than non-Aboriginal Canadians (Kowpak & Gillis, 2015). The health challenges faced by Canadian Aboriginal peoples are unique and complex (Richardson, Driedger, Pizzi, Wu, & Moghadas, 2012), especially as an outsider therefore the need to understand Aboriginal health from their perspective. Hence, in community and population health profession, knowledge of Aboriginal health increases the understanding of the underlying causes of health disparity and poor health among Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal health knowledge is beneficial

The incidence rates varied depending on the type of cancer. Non-indigenous people had higher rates for:

In Aboriginal Traditions and Policy, the presentation group that I was part of consisted of Ashleigh, Tam, Jy, Lana, Khoi and myself. We chose Gertrude Street (a.k.a “The Dirty Mile”) to be our chosen site to research. Gertrude Street belonged to the Woiworung Tribe and was Melbourne’s first suburb after being separated from Melbourne City in 1858 (Fitzroy History Society 2018). It was known as ‘The Dirty Mile’ or ‘The Black Mile’, as it “was home to some legendary black pubs, and later, the Aboriginal community's own health, housing and legal organisations.” (Allam 2010). Our group used the Fitzroy Aboriginal Heritage Walking Trail brochure, created by the City of Yarra, as a guide which took us to the many places in Gertrude Street which

Since the beginning of our colonial history, Canada’s Indigenous people have struggled with racist legislation and policies designed to terminate their cultural values, rights, and freedoms. From the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to the recently passed Bill C-51, Canada’s Eurocentric federal government has caused a cultural oppression, and some would even argue, genocide of Canada’s First Nations people (Gray, 2011). Canada’s history of discriminatory federal policies have not only wrought destruction on Indigenous identities all across the country, but they are overwhelmingly responsible for the disproportionately high rates of violence, crime, poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse that is so rampant in many First Nations communities (Gray, 2011).

Recognition of Aboriginals in the Constitution to the Prime Minister, there has been growing momentum in the campaign for the referendum on this issue.

The environment and culture are important to the Aboriginal people in Australia, which is illustrated through the Kakadu National Park (Australian Government Parks Australia, 2016).

The greatest challenge facing the Aboriginal population at the moment is health according to Weightman (2013). Moreover, Gracey and King (2009) identified inadequate clinical care and health promotion, as well as poor disease prevention services are circumstances that make the situation worst for Aboriginal groups. Further, Pearson (cited in Weightman, 2013) proposed that the only way to address such health crisis is by way of enabling local communities to take responsibility of their own affairs. With this intention, Indigenous community-controlled health services has been established since 1970 in order to empower local populations and facilitate services that would attend to the health demands of the population they served (Germov,

Aboriginal peoples in Canada generally represents people who are the Indigenous habitants of Canada constituting of First Nations, Inuit and Metis (Etowa, Jesty, & Vukic, 2011). The First Nations people are referred to as Indians (status or non-status), the Inuit people traditionally live in northern regions including the Arctic and Subarctic areas and previously referred to as Eskimo while the Metis are Aboriginal people with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestors as a result of intermarriage with Europeans (Caron-Malenfant, Simon, Guimonnd, Grondin, & Lebel, 2015). Also, urban Aboriginal people are those who migrated to the urban areas in search for better opportunities and employment in the 1960s and 1970s and may include status and

Aboriginal concepts of family communities, respecting and understanding the aboriginal language and group names of nation, communication, and general respect, and understanding for their communities. Getting more involved, bringing cultural people/aboriginal and Torres strait islander people into the centres, getting them involved I their communities and encouraging children to feel more positive and learn more about their cultural back round and nations. When working in partnership always being aware of every individual person is different, every schooling/centres are different, every cultural learning is different, but it all connects to having strong connections with the children and the lands, and environments, and the nations of the