Aboriginal Social Economy

What might explain these statistics, or at least serve as correlations, are the determinants of health. If the reader is not familiar with the determinants of health, the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides an explanation of them. In essence, these health determinants are factors that have significant impact upon one’s health. The main determinants for health are: socioeconomic status, where the rich and upper classes tend to be healthier; education, where low education is linked to stress, lower self-esteem and poorer health choices; environment, where purer air, cleaner water, healthier workplaces and better housing contribute to being healthier; health services, where access to services and proper equipment all contribute to health; as well as gender, genetics, culture and social behaviour (WHO, 2016). As there are so health determinants, where essays can be written on one alone, it is not within the scope of this essay to critically analyse each determinant for Indigenous Australians. With this in mind, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2014) documents an extensive list of data for Indigenous health, most of which discusses issues which are out-of-scope for this analysis. What is relevant, however, is outlined next. Across the board, in 2011, the Indigenous population was younger than the non-Indigenous population due to high fertility and mortality rates with those

The first article mentioned the Grassy Narrows aboriginals of Canada and how industrial waste led to the contamination of the aboriginal’s food source. In support, the second source described in details how the contamination of food source affected the health of aboriginals by reducing the availability of nutritional plant and animal. This caused an increase in the sale price of food items, insufficient funds contributed to malnutrition and food

Canada’s Aboriginal people have been experiencing adverse health outcomes that have been resonating across generations. As a result, Aboriginals are disproportionately suffering more from disabilities, diseases and high rates of mortality than other Canadians. The high rates of HIV, depression and chronic diseases among Aboriginals have been linked to experiences of poverty, unemployment, poor living conditions, and the loss of community ties. Although Aboriginal communities are suffering from a wide variety of health issue, Canadian society has been unable to find adequate solutions. My understanding is that as a society we lack the ability to find suitable solutions because we do not understand the correlations between various socio-economic factors and poor health.

Before we analyse the data of the health indicators and data in Aboriginal communities, we must recognise the sheer diversity of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada - who are so dispersed across the nation. This this severely limits our interpretation of data on Aboriginal communities as, there is little data on Aboriginal people who do not live on Aboriginal reservations in Canada (Cardwell and Wilson: 2005). Furthermore, the data that is often used in empirical studies of indigenous communities often condense complex data – making it exceptionally difficult to paint an accurate picture of disparities in the Aboriginal population of Canada. Health disparities are the indicators of a disproportionate burden of disease on a particular population. Whereas, health inequities point to the underlying causes of the disparities - which are related to social, economic, cultural, and political inequities (Adelson, 2005: 45). For example, the urban non-Aboriginal population in Canada has a higher level of education and income than the aboriginal population (Cardwell and Wilson: 2012). This is inherently important for improving the health of Aboriginal communities. As, Canada’s indigenous population are often recognised as some of the most disadvantaged and impoverished people in Canada, particularly when compared to the non-Aboriginal people.

Socioeconomic status is the combination of income, education and occupation which typically measures the social standing of an individual in a society [3]. The potential impact of socioeconomic status is vital as it affects a significant percent of Canadians. According to the Employment and Social Development Canada (2006), poverty affects approximately twelve percent of adults and thirteen percent of children. The gap between the rich and poor has significantly increased within the past few decades and research suggests that it will

With individual cultures living in one country, one cultural group leaves polar-opposite from the rest. When further looking at the ways of living between the indigenous groups and non-indigenous groups show that the descendants of the first people in Canada are experiencing a time that matches the lifestyle of a Third World Nation. Some examples of the major house impairments needed are 25.9% for First Nations and 6.8% for non-indigenous that alone shows a 19.1% difference in housing. When looking at the young people who have received a post-secondary diploma, degree or certificate, the Inuits have a percentage of 35.6% and 64.7% for Non-Indigenous Canadians. Smoking has always been a large reason for health problems, then the population of

The CIHR Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples is a forward-looking funding program established to further

First Nations people living off reserve are reported to have poorer health in comparison to non-Aboriginal people. Food security security is most commonly understood to exists in household when everyone has access to an ample amount of safe and healthy food. On the other hand, food insecurity results when the quality and quantity of food are compromised, this is usually linked with limited financial resources. First Nations, Metis, and Inuits are more likely to encounter food insecurity than non-Aboriginal groups. It is stated that the smoking rates in the three Aboriginal groups were over two times higher than the non-ABoriginal population. There are reports of high rates of daily smoking and drinking by First Nations, Metis, and Inuits than

In order to explore the state of the health and well-being of First Nations peoples I first need to explain the measuring stick used to determine health and well-being. According to the World Health Organization, "health is a complete state of mental, physical and social well-being, not only the absence of disease". In keeping with this philosophy Statistics Canada, collect data on what they term “Non-medical determinants of health”. These determinants fall into the following categories: Health behaviors, Living and working conditions, Personal resources and Environmental factors. Frideres’ question suggests a difference exists so I will compare the health and well-being statuses of Indigenous and mainstream Canadians to understand just what differences exist between both groups. Statistics show that Indigenous people measure lower on almost all aspects of well-being when compared to Non-Indigenous populations. To demonstrate how pervasive the disparity is I would like to review some statistics for each determinant listed above. Considering

Zinman (2010) goes on to explain, how many of the Aboriginals now live on the reserves and as a result: they don’t do as much physical labour as they used to (hunting, fishing), they are exposed to more fatty foods (versus their traditional hunter-gatherer diet), and there is a high rate of unemployment. Due to this drastic change of lifestyle that occurred over a short period of time, the Aboriginals are faced with a high rate of obesity (Zinman, 2010). Obesity in turn, is one aspect that has a role in the result of gestational diabetes for the

Aboriginals have lived various types of lives and in attempt to improve the lives of Canada’s Aboriginal people formed the Aboriginal self-government. Since the formation, the self-government has accomplished some things that have both positively and negatively impacted Aboriginal people. On the most part, the Aboriginal self-government has improved the lives of Canada’s Aboriginal people significantly. Not only has it improved the lives of Aboriginals, but has also supported them as a large community. The Aboriginal self-government has helped provide access to lands and resources, offered financial help through financing, and last but not least have improved living conditions for Canada’s Aboriginal people.

President Truman once said that international development is about relieving the suffering of people. It has for goal to make people’s lives better, especially focusing on the difficult lives of the population of developing countries, minorities, children, and women. It’s a multidisciplinary discipline , with multiple actors such as countries, NGOs and international organization like the United Nations. Unfortunately, international development is a hard and long process, and it has many obstacles along the way: A recurrent problem is social disparities. Social inequalities can be found everywhere, in every sphere of society, at a local and at an international level. First of all, gender inequality is an enormous challenge: 1.2 billion of people in the world are living in extreme poverty, and 70% of this number are women. The gap between women’s condition of living and men’s is undeniable. Moreover, some women suffer from a double burden: Being a minority and a woman. Indigenous population have, since the European colonization, being discriminated in many ways. We will focus on this paper on the discrimination over indigenous people and the double-burden of aboriginal women, then study the empirical case of health for indigenous women and how is this a development issue. We will first study how indigenous people and above all aboriginal women

During Canada’s initial stages of becoming a nation, poverty wasn’t a major issue in creating the country. But as the time progressed there have been many problems that have created this like the health and wellness of many individuals. Firstly, since there are people who have little to no money, they aren’t receiving the proper nutrients a person should be getting, as it ruins their health and decreases their life expectancy. People are deprived if they cannot obtain, at all or sufficiently, the conditions of life – that is, the diets, amenities, standards and services – which allow them to play the roles, participate in the relationships and follow the customary behaviour which is expected of them by

Aboriginal people, often known as Indigenous people, refers to the original people of North America and their descendants, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. Data showed that 4.3% of Canada’s population is represented by Aboriginal people, which increased by 20.1% between the 2006 and 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2011). Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia had the largest numbers of Aboriginal people (Statistics Canada, 2011). The median after-tax income for Aboriginal people aged 15 years and older in 2010 was $20,060 (Statistics Canada, 2015). In a 2014 Canadian income survey conducted by the Government of Canada (2016), 8.8% of Canadians were below the low-income cut-offs and were living in poverty, 18.7% of Canadians were Indigenous people on living on a reserve. It is important for sociologists and health care professionals to be aware of the income issues of Aboriginal people in Canada to better understand the social context and health issues that aboriginal people face daily.

Saskatoon’s core neighborhoods including communities of King George, Meadow Green, Pleasant Hill, Riversdale and Westmount (National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, 2015) consist of a disproportionate proportion of the most vulnerable populations to poverty. Hence, Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) defines its population by using a measure of neighborhood residence and includes Aboriginal status in its analyses (Morrison, 2011) because, First Nations, Métis, and ethnic minorities majorly occupy the low income neighborhoods (Cessna, 2014). Although Saskatoon’s Aboriginal population are becoming more disperse in their place of residence, a significant number of Aboriginal people reside in the core neighborhoods (Lotoski, Engler-Stringer, & Muhajarine, 2015).