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Researchers, community organizations, and Inuit leaders increasingly question the suitability of methods to assess the prevalence of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland in Canada). Particularly contentious is the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). The HFSSM is applied in modified form as part of Health Canada's nationwide Canadian Community Health (CCHS) and Aboriginal Peoples Surveys. The 18-question HFSSM is the primary survey tool used by the Government of Canada to assess food security prevalence. Yet the HFSSM asks only about the affordability of store-bought foods (also termed "market foods" elsewhere in the literature) when collecting data to designate food security status. This is despite communities in Inuit Nunangat having complex dual or mixed food systems, that is, they rely on foods harvested from ancestral lands (country foods) in combination with store-bought foods to sustain mixed cash-subsistence economies and diets. Sourcing country foods requires money for the purchase of equipment and machinery. However, country foods also have numerous access and availability criteria dictated by non-financial factors. In this paper, we explore the problem of the monetary bias (the focus on an individual or household's ability to purchase foods) in the HFSSM and discuss the knock-on effects of using monetary metrics as the sole means of measuring and monitoring food security in dual food environments. We contend that relying on monetary access as a measure presents an incomplete picture of the reality of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat. Presently, there is little consideration of the nuance of social norms and cultural values that govern dual food systems or the importance of less tangible, non-financial factors that might affect food access (e.g., knowledge of where and how to harvest and of machine maintenance, suitable environmental conditions for travel, conducive harvest regulations, social relationships, ecological stability). Ultimately, this contributes to restricted policy-level understandings of what it means to ensure stable, culturally adequate, and just food systems, and limits self-determination in northern food environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Arctic, seasonal variation in the accessibility of the land, sea ice and open waters influences which resources can be harvested safely and efficiently. Climate stressors are also increasingly affecting access to subsistence resources. Within Inuit communities, people differ in their involvement with subsistence activities, but little is known about how engagement in the cash economy (time and money available) and other socio-economic factors shape the food production choices of Inuit harvesters, and their ability to adapt to rapid ecological change. We analyse 281 foraging trips involving 23 Inuit harvesters from Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, Canada using a Bayesian approach modelling both patch choice and within-patch success. Gender and income predict Inuit harvest strategies: while men, especially men from low-income households, often visit patches with a relatively low success probability, women and high-income hunters generally have a higher propensity to choose low-risk patches. Inland hunting, marine hunting and fishing differ in the required equipment and effort, and hunters may have to shift their subsistence activities if certain patches become less profitable or less safe owing to high costs of transportation or climate change (e.g. navigate larger areas inland instead of targeting seals on the sea ice). Our finding that household income predicts patch choice suggests that the capacity to maintain access to country foods depends on engagement with the cash economy. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This synthesis paper summarizes published proxy climate evidence showing the spatial and temporal pattern of climate change through the Holocene in Arctic Canada and Greenland. Our synthesis includes 47 records from a recently published database of highly resolved Holocene paleoclimate time series from the Arctic (Sundqvist et al., 2014). We analyze the temperature histories represented by the database and compare them with paleoclimate and environmental information from 54 additional published records, mostly from datasets that did not fit the selection criteria for the Arctic Holocene database. Combined, we review evidence from a variety of proxy archives including glaciers (ice cores and glacial geomorphology), lake sediments, peat sequences, and coastal and deep-marine sediments. The temperature-sensitive records indicate more consistent and earlier Holocene warmth in the north and east, and a more diffuse and later Holocene thermal maximum in the south and west. Principal components analysis reveals two dominant Holocene trends, one with early Holocene warmth followed by cooling in the middle Holocene, the other with a broader period of warmth in the middle Holocene followed by cooling in the late Holocene. The temperature decrease from the warmest to the coolest portions of the Holocene is 3.0 ± 1.0 °C on average (n = 11 sites). The Greenland Ice Sheet retracted to its minimum extent between 5 and 3 ka, consistent with many sites from around Greenland depicting a switch from warm to cool conditions around that time. The spatial pattern of temperature change through the Holocene was likely driven by the decrease in northern latitude summer insolation through the Holocene, the varied influence of waning ice sheets in the early Holocene, and the variable influx of Atlantic Water into the study region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Community-driven projects that aim to address public concerns about health risks from H. pylori infection in Indigenous Arctic communities (estimated H. pylori prevalence = 64%) show frequent failure of treatment to eliminate the bacterium. Among project participants, treatment effectiveness is reduced by antibiotic resistance of infecting H. pylori strains, which in turn, is associated with frequent exposure to antibiotics used to treat other infections. This analysis compares antibiotic dispensation rates in Canadian Arctic communities to rates in urban and rural populations in Alberta, a southern Canadian province.Methods: Project staff collected antibiotic exposure histories for 297 participants enrolled during 2007-2012 in Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories, and Old Crow, Yukon. Medical chart reviews collected data on systemic antibiotic dispensations for the 5-year period before enrolment for each participant. Antibiotic dispensation data for urban Edmonton, Alberta (average population ~ 860,000) and rural northern Alberta (average population ~ 450,000) during 2010-2013 were obtained from the Alberta Government Interactive Health Data Application.Results: Antibiotic dispensation rates, estimated as dispensations/person-years (95% confidence interval) were: in Arctic communities, 0.89 (0.84, 0.94); in Edmonton, 0.55 (0.55, 0.56); in rural northern Alberta, 0.63 (0.62, 0.63). Antibiotic dispensation rates were higher in women and older age groups in all regions. In all regions, the highest dispensation rates occurred for β-lactam and macrolide antibiotic classes.Conclusions: These results show more frequent antibiotic dispensation in Arctic communities relative to an urban and rural southern Canadian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]