CANADIAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION STRATEGIES

Canadian Aboriginal Community Health Promotion Strategies



Canadian Aboriginal Community Health Promotion Strategies

Introduction

The metaphor of healing customs has some promise meanings. First, it mentions to retrieving and applying traditional procedures of healing. Aboriginal peoples had a broad variety of methods of healing that were embedded in devout, religious and subsistence undertakings and that served to integrate the community and supply individuals with systems of significance to make sense of suffering. These traditions were displaced and actively suppressed by successive gen­erations of Euro-Canadian missionaries, governments and professionals. Recuperating these customs therefore reconnects up to date Aboriginal peoples to their historical customs and activates rituals and practices that may encourage community solidarity.

More amply, the recovery of custom itself may be viewed as healing, both at individual and collective levels. Hence, efforts to refurbish language, devout and communal practices have been appreciated by contemporary Aboriginal peoples as fundamentally acts of healing. For most Aboriginal peoples, customary subsistence activities (e.g. hunting) have been profoundly integrated with devout and devout beliefs as well as with schemes of family and community relationships. Returning to the land to take part in these activities may then have healing worth both for troubled persons and entire communities. Finally, establishing lawful assertions to customary countries and self-government may furthermore be examined as crucial elements of re-asserting heritage tradition, even when the forms of governance contemplate contemporary political realities. (O'Donnell, 1986)

Discussion

Almost 1 million people self-identify as Aboriginal in Canada, representing 3.3% of the total population. While many live on reserves, 41% reside in non-reserve areas (36% urban, 5% rural). Aboriginal ­Peoples include Amerindian peoples referred to as First Nations as well as Inuit and Métis who account for about 5% and more than 20% of Aboriginal people, respectively. The population is demographically characteristic in being junior than the general Canadian community (mean age 25.5 vs. 35. for general community) with absolutely one-third of the Aboriginal community junior than 15 years of age. There is great diversity inside this community with 11 major dialect assemblies and more than 58 dialects, 596 First Nations bands and 2284 reserves. (McGinnis & Foege, 1993)

Aboriginal peoples bear from a broad variety of wellbeing problems at much higher rates than other Canadians. They have 6-7 times greater incidence of tuberculosis, are 4-5 times more likely to be diabetic, 3 times more likely to have heart disease and hypertension and twice as likely to report a long-term disability. Injuries and poisonings are the major origin of potential years of life lost; Aboriginal peoples have 1.5 times national mortality rate and 6.5 times national rate of death by injuries and poisonings. (Ewles and Simnett, 1992)

Social problems are furthermore endemic. The incarceration rates of Aboriginal people are 5-6 times higher than the national average. In a recent survey, 39% of Aboriginal adults reported that family violence is a problem in their community, 25% reported sexual abuse and 15% reported rape. About 4% of First Nations children were in custody of Child and Family Service ...