Selected Topics - Indigenous Health

• Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit, Rural Health Unit, UNSW
• Nura Gili Indigenous Programmes UNSW

Events

• School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW - Upcoming Events

Global policies and related documents

• Dana Declaration on mobile peoples and conservation
  The Dana Declaration on Mobile Peoples and Conservation calls for a new approach to conservation: one which recognises the rights and interests of 'mobile' peoples. The term mobile peoples covers indigenous and traditional peoples whose livelihoods depend on extensive common property use of natural resources, and who use mobility as a management strategy and as an element of cultural identity. The Declaration is the outcome of an international meeting of social and natural scientists and NGOs that took place in Wadi Dana Nature Reserve in Jordan in early April 2002 and is an attempt to forge a new partnership between conservationists and mobile peoples in order to ensure that future conservation policies and programmes help maintain the earth's ecosystems, species and genetic diversity while respecting the rights of indigenous and traditional communities which have been disregarded in the past

Reports, guidelines and projects

• Best Practices in Intercultural Health
  The practice of integrating western and traditional medicines is fast becoming an accepted and ever more widely used approach in health care systems throughout the world. However, recent debates about the development of intercultural health approaches have raised significant concerns regarding regulation, efficacy, intellectual property rights, lack of cross-cultural research, access and affordability, and protection of sacred Indigenous plants and knowledge. Recognizing the global importance of this issue and the paucity of collaborative research on intercultural health, the Inter American Development Bank developed an international initiative on Best Practices in Intercultural Health. This report describes that initiative.
• Family violence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
  This report, published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare "presents information on the extent of violence (in particular family violence) in the Indigenous population, using existing surveys and administrative data collections. Information is presented on the prevalence of violence, associated harm and services for victims of violence, as well as on those in contact with the criminal justice system. The report also discusses gaps in existing information, the extent to which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are identified and strategies to improve the information on family violence. This report is a useful resource for policy makers, administrators of programs and researchers with an interest in issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."
• Health of Indigenous People
  This site provides information about the Pan American Health Organization's Indigenous Health Initiatives. It includes links to the organization's strategic plan for indigenous peoples, statistics, technical documents and the Newsletter for Indigenous Peoples.
• Indigenous and tribal and peoples: an ethnic audit of selected Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)
  This ethnic audit of 14 countries published by the International Labour Office "...shows that there are significant differences between regions and, within regions, between countries in terms of whether and how indigenous questions are addressed. PRSPs are more likely to address the structural causes of indigenous and tribal peoples’ pauperization and social exclusion where legal frameworks recognize indigenous peoples’ group rights; institutions and policies respecting and accommodating cultural diversity have been developed and indigenous peoples have organized and mobilized for political change….”
• Reported Health and Health-influencing Behaviors Among Urban American Indians and Alaska Natives: An Analysis of Data Collected by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
  On March 5th, 2008, the Urban Indian Health Institute releases their ground breaking report titled: Reported Health and Health-Influencing Behaviors Among Urban American Indians and Alaska Natives. The report was released at a Native Symposium titled, Through Native Eyes: Identity, Perception and Recognition. “…The report finds additional evidence that American Indians and Alaska Natives living in urban areas face major hurdles in reaching health status similar to their fellow Americans. Findings from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a national telephone survey conducted yearly and coordinated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), show America Indians and Alaska Natives living in selected urban areas were more likely to report difficulty accessing health care, had higher rates of risk behavior, and experienced worse health outcomes than the general population. Income differences were shown to play a role in explaining some of the health disparities, but differences in some reported health indicators were not income dependent….”

Educational resources

• Arctic Circle
  The aim of this site is to stimulate a greater interest in the people's and environment of the Arctic and Subarctic region. Its primary themes include natural resources, history and culture, social equity and environmental justice. In addressing these issues the presentations utilize a range of textual and photographic materials as well as sound and short video recordings.
• Bill Henderson's Links to Aboriginal Resources
  Links to international indigenous resources maintained by Bill Henderson a Canadian Lawyer providing general litigation and advice on issues of Aboriginal, Treaty and other rights and concerns of First Nations.
• Culture Training Manual for Medical Workers in Aboriginal Communities, 1973 (Australia)
  This training manual introduces health care workers to the culture of the Pitjantjatjara people of Central Australia. The information provided is goal specific and focuses on cultural differences that may affect the achievement of particular medical outcomes in indigenous communities.
• Indigenous Peoples of Australia
  This site was established by Eberhard Wenzel, a leading Public Health Practitioner and Academic and founder of the Virtual Library Public Health. Although the site has not been updated since Eberhard's death in 2001 it continues to provide links to an extensive variety of indigenous resources.
• Indians.Org
  This website from the American Indian Heritage Foundation contains extensive native American resources, including a tribal directory, a guide to indigenous people's literature, relevant news reports and other articles of interest to indigenous peoples as well as links to the foundation's programs.
• Native American Sites
  This site, presented by Lisa Mitten, a mixed blood Mohawk urban Indian provides access to the home pages of individual Native Americans and Nations and to other sites that provide information about American Indians.
• Native Americans and the Environment
  This site presented by Dr Axl Dark, an anthropologist studying the politics of land and treaty rights aims to educate the public on environmental problems in Native American communities, to explore the values and historical experience that Native Americans can bring to bear on environmental issues and to promote conservation measures that respect Native American land and resource rights.
• NativeWeb
  NativeWeb is an international, non-profit, educational organization dedicated to using telecommunications including computer technology and the Internet to disseminate information from and about indigenous nations, peoples and organizations around the world, to foster communication between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and to conduct research about indigenous people's use of the Internet.
• People's Path
  This site contains links to websites of relevance to indigenous peoples particularly to Native Americans.
• Public Health Bush Book
  The ‘Public Health Bush Book’ has been written as a resource for people who work with remote Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory. It has been written by people who have worked in, or with, remote community health care teams over many years, and relates their accumulated learning to published national and international evidence.
• UN-International Decade 1995-2004: Indigenous People
  This site outlines the aims and programmes associated with the United Nations International Decade for Indigenous People 1995-2004.
• Village of First Nations
  This site which is presented by the First Northern Arts Interactive Cooperation, an internet development and communication company, provides a forum for Indigenous People's to bring native issues and culture to the internet in order to educate about and promote native activities.
• WWW Virtual Library: Public Health - Native American Health Resources
• WWW Virtual Library: Aboriginal Studies
• WWW Virtual Library: American Indians
• WWW Virtual Library: Circumpolar Peoples

Organisations and Networks

UN and multinational

Government

• American Indian Environmental Office
  This office, which is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency coordinates the agency wide effort to strengthen public health and environmental protection in Indian Country. Its emphasis is on building Tribal capacity to administer their own environmental programs.
• Indian Health Service of the USA
  The Indian Health Service is the US Federal health program for American Indians and Native Alaskans. This site contains links to nationwide programs and initiatives, medical and professional programs, resources for Indian Health Services management, press releases and information technology resources as well as links to the text of letters to tribal leaders.
• Koori Health Unit (Victoria, Australia)
  Throughout Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities suffer with a much higher burden of ill health and premature death than other groups. The aim of the Koori Health Program of the Victorian State Government is to improve the health and well being of all indigenous people in Victoria.

Non Government

• Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet
  Health Infonet makes comprehensive and up-to-date information accessible to all people interested in the health of Indigenous Australians. It provides the main means of disseminating research and information generated by the organisation itself as well as working directly with Indigenous people to improve their use of the Internet and assist Indigenous and other organisations to make their information more accessible.
• Australian Indigenous Health Promotion Network
  The Australian Indigenous Health Promotion Knowledge Network (AIHKPN) provides access to the latest information in Indigenous health including employment, skills and educational development opportunities; conferences and publications..
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies
  AIATSIS is an independent Australian Commonwealth Government statutory authority devoted to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. It is Australia's premier institution for information about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This site contains extensive resources including links to publications, audiovisual archives, library collections, family history research facilities and information about research grant applications.
• Aboriginal Youth Network (Canada)
  The Aboriginal Youth Network is a network that runs across Canada connecting Aboriginal youth. This site provides information specifically designed for Aboriginal youth regarding programs, services, youth news, bulletins, art and literature, events, chat lines, e-mail hook ups and listings as well as a health info site for teens.
• Alaska Native Knowledge Network
  "This site was designed to serve as a resource for compiling and exchanging information related to Alaska Native knowledge systems and ways of knowing. It has been established to assist Native people, government agencies, educators and the general public in gaining access to the knowledge base that Alaska Natives have acquired through cumulative experience over millennia.
• Canadian Assembly of First Nations
  The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing First Nation citizens in Canada. This web site contains information on the assembly's policy priority areas which include education, environment, finance, fisheries, health and social affairs, justice system, youth and women as well as links to publications, programs and current issues concerning indigenous peoples.
• Center for World Indigenous Studies
  The Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) is an independent, non-profit U.S. research and education organisation dedicated to wider understanding and appreciation of the ideas and knowledge of indigenous people and the social, economic and political realities of indigenous nations.
• Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health
  The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH) aims to promote high quality research through the development of research partnerships involving key stakeholders; through increased Aboriginal participation and control and through better-defined ethical practices; Undertake strategic research to investigate health service delivery systems, the social determinants of health and health conditions; transfer research findings into policy and practice to improve primary health care practice, to build sustainable prevention and early intervention programs and to reduce the burden of disease on Aboriginal communities and individuals.
• Cultural Survival
  Cultural Survival is a non-profit organization founded in 1972 to defend the human rights and cultural autonomy of Indigenous peoples and oppressed ethnic minorities. Through research and publications the organisation focuses attention on violations of those rights and advocates alternative policies to avoid genocide, ethnic conflict and the destruction of indigenous peoples' ways of life.
• Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics
  This center was founded in 1984 as a source of authoritative information on indigenous people's affairs. As part of the University of Colorado at Denver its educational projects include the creation and presentation of a university level multidisciplinary curriculum focused on the study of Indigenous peoples, the publication of the Fourth World Bulletin, a journal on indigenous politics, the development of university textbooks for the study of indigenous politics, the presentation of public forums and the presentation of testimony before international legal organizations.
• Four Worlds Centre for Developmental Learning
  Four Worlds is an international network of people and organizations bound together by a set of common principles based on the traditional teachings of North American tribal peoples combined with the best that western science and technology has to offer. The organisation conducts culturally based, participatory community development work with indigenous communities throughout North and South America and with local and national governments throughout the world.
• Indigenous Peoples Coalition Against Biocolonialism
  The IPCB is organized to assist indigenous peoples in the protection of their genetic resources, indigenous knowledge, cultural and human rights from the negative effects of biotechnology.
• Indigenous Environmental Network (USA)
  "A network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions."
• Indigenous Women's Network
  The Indigenous Women's Network (IWN) was created to further the empowerment of Indigenous women, their families, communities, and Nations within the Americas and the Pacific Basin. IWN aims to educate and advocate for revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures, protection of religious and cultural practices, land recovery, and environmental protection, in the hope of eliminating all forms of oppression and attaining self-sufficiency.
• International Indian Treaty Council
  "An organization of Indigenous Peoples from North, Central, South America and the Pacific working for the Sovereignty and Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition and protection of Indigenous Rights, Traditional Cultures and Sacred Lands"
• Inuit Circumpolar Conference
  A NGO that represents the 125,000 Inuit of Russia (Chukotka), United States of America (Alaska), Canada, and Denmark (Greenland). Formed in 1977, the ICC holds NGO status within the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and represents the Inuit in the international arena of environmental and social initiatives.
• National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO)
  The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) is the national peak Aboriginal health body representing Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services throughout Australia. An Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) is a primary health care service initiated and operated by the local Aboriginal community to deliver holistic, comprehensive, and culturally appropriate health care to the community which controls it (through a locally elected Board of Management).
• Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center
  The Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center conducts many programs benefitting indigenous people locally, nationally, and internationally. Some examples are the Domestic Violence Program, AIDS Prevention Program, Youth Services which include the Child Development Program and the Youth Wellness Program, Adult Learning Program, Environmental Awareness and Action Project, Cancer Prevention, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Awareness Program, Clearinghouse of Educational Materials, Food Pantry and the Wicozanni Wowapi Newsletter.
• Red Feather Development Group
  Red Feather educates and empowers American Indian nations to create sustainable solutions to the severe housing crisis within reservation communities. While focusing public attention on the intergenerational poverty and acute community development problems that plague American Indian reservations, Red Feather teaches affordable, replicable and sustainable approaches to home construction. Red Feather organizes volunteers, and, alongside tribal members, builds desperately needed homes
• Secretariat of National Aboriginal Islander Child Care
  The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, SNAICC, is the national non-government peak body in Australia representing the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families. SNAICC operates from a membership base of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community based child care agencies, Multi-functional Aboriginal Children's Services, family support services, foster care agencies, link up and family reunification services, family group homes, community groups and voluntary associations, long day care child care services, preschools, early childhood education services and services for young people at risk.
• Taiga Rescue Network
  Taiga Rescue Network (TRN) was established in 1992 to give a voice to those wanting to see sensitive development in the boreal region. Since its inception, the network has supported, linked and publicized local struggles fighting for the boreal forests and its peoples. Today more than 150 organizations are participants of the network, and remain the only international network of non-governmental organisations, indigenous peoples and individuals working to defend the world's boreal forests.

Academic Institutions with particular focus in this area

• University of Saskatchewan, Native Studies Department
  This Department of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada focus includes Native communities Pre-Professional preparation in fields like Health Care; History of Native Societies; Research Methods for Native Studies, Theory and Practice; Contemporary issues such as health, justice and law, economic development, Aboriginal rights and self-government, resource management, and Native women and Cree language courses, emphasizing spoken fluency.
• Yooroang Garang
  In February 1999, Yooroang Garang was established as a School of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. Yooroang Garang has provided Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with education, support and training in the Health Sciences since 1983. Over the past two decades it has grown from a support unit to a School offering a full range of academic courses as well as support programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Key Conferences, conference and workshop reports

Coming conferences

Conference reports

Journals, Newsletters, Forums

Bibliographies, Libraries

Public health bookshops

• Public Health bookshop