Search

Background: There are emerging opportunities to improve the health of Aboriginal children and youth. The Aboriginal Children's Health and Well-being Measure (ACHWM) was developed to enable Aboriginal communities to obtain group-level data from the perspectives of their children 8 to 18 years of age. The survey was developed in collaboration with children, based on the Medicine Wheel framework. The purpose of this study was to ensure that children and youth interpreted the ACHWM questions consistently and accurately and to establish the face validity of the survey. Methods: Children and parents/caregivers from the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve (Canada) participated in a detailed interview process as they completed the ACHWM, in 2012. Each participant worked through their thought process verbally, to enable the interviewer to identify questions that were misinterpreted or inconsistently interpreted. Questions were revised based on feedback from the participants, and reviewed with new participants until a stable version was established. The resulting version was reviewed by health care providers and community members to further ensure cultural relevance and face validity within the community. Results: A total of 18 interviews, with 9 children and 9 caregivers, were required to achieve a stable version of the survey. The children ranged in age from 8 to 18 years. Revisions were required for 19 questions. Most of these revisions were minor linguistic changes. In addition, 6 questions were deleted due to consistent problems and 4 questions were created to address gaps identified during the process. Community members confirmed the appropriateness of the measure for their community and communicated their pride in their youth's role in the development of this survey. Conclusions: The result was a 58-question version of the ACHWM that was consistently interpreted and culturally appropriate, and had face validity confirmed by experts from the community, children and their parents/caregivers. The ACHWM is ready to be assessed for relevance to other Aboriginal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within this submission the authors share their experiences as a blended research team with Aboriginal community and mainstream academic researchers. The team has collaborated since 2004 on several externally funded research projects. Initially, the team engaged in research through mainstream methodologies. In the process, the community co-researchers and participants were silenced through mainstream cultural practices that were unfamiliar and meaningless in Wikwemikong culture. More recently, the team has employed a community conceived de-colonizing methodology, developed from within Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. Within this submission, the authors will highlight their initial cultural missteps, followed by more recently utilized culturally relevant approaches. It is proposed that what might be ethically sound research with mainstream participants and among mainstream researchers can silence and subvert practices among those from marginalized groups/cultures. Provisional suggestions are offered for researchers interested in co-researching in Aboriginal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the community health of the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve (WUIR), Ontario, Canada. Results are reported from fieldwork including participant observation, key informant interviewing and self-reported data measuring health status, risk behaviour, place of residence, self-identity, and personal history extracted from 350 interviews conducted during a community-wide needs assessment. The research aimed to create a health plan for the community; however, subsequent analysis of the needs assessment results indicates that internal diversity exists in health status and needs between the seven villages that comprise WUIR. The analysis suggests variation in health status and risk-taking behaviour among community members may be related to varying colonial histories among the villages. The implications of intra-community variation in health status in First Nations are discussed in relation to influential health policy theories such as the determinants of health and health transfer policy in Canada. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]