Health Watch - September, 2015

Study shows culture impacted in wildfire evacuations 

 A study by Julia Scharbach and James Waldram in the department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Saskatchewan says more care must be taken to protect family and culture when wildfire threatens northern communities. The pair looked at the experiences of the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation, who were evacuated due to wildfire in 2011. The authors suggest that “the irony is clear: the disaster of which many residents spoke pertained not to the threat of wildfire, but to the efforts to protect them from it.” The study makes a number of recommendations and calls for officials to reimagine the concept of risk to include the potential impact of an evacuation on the cultural and social fabric of a community.

Breastfeeding could significantly cut back on illnesses

A new study has found that encouraging First Nations, Inuit and Métis mothers to breastfeed would be a simple way to significantly cut down the high rates of common infection — and even deaths — seen in Aboriginal babies. In her paper published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, Dr. Kathryn McIsaac, with the Centre for Research on Inner City Health of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, said Aboriginal babies could benefit because they suffer higher rates of common ear infections, respiratory tract infections, gastrointestinal infections and SIDS. McIsaac estimated that breastfeeding could have a significant impact on babies both on-reserve as well as for First Nations, Inuit and Métis babies off reserve. Presently the rate of breastfeeding among Indigenous women (78 per cent) is lower than the general population (87 per cent). Promoting breastfeeding among Aboriginal women is one solution, said McIsaac, noting such programs would be even more successful if delivered by Indigenous people. 

Aboriginal youth suicide up in Northern Ontario

Increasing numbers of Aboriginal youth in Northern Ontario are killing themselves, and 42 per cent of the suicides over the last 10 years have occurred in just seven communities. In 2013, there were 31 suicides by Aboriginal people in Ontario, up from 11 in 1991, said Gerald McKinley, a postdoctoral fellow at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Overall, from 1991 to 2013, there were 468 suicides by Aboriginal people in Ontario, almost half by people 25 or younger. McKinley was able to analyze the figures because the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario breaks out those suicides, unlike most other provinces. Although Health Canada cites the Aboriginal youth suicide rate as up to seven times higher than that for non-Aboriginal youth, there are no Aboriginal-specific rates per 100,000 for each province. Clusters of three to five youths in a community who complete suicide within months of each other drive the increasing rates in Ontario, McKinley says. “Similarities in method, geographic distribution and age completion make concerns over the idea of suicide as a contagion legitimate and worth considering.”

Changes to bring about transparency in Nutrition North Canada program

A change to the Nutrition North Canada program, effective April 1, 2016, will see retailers implement a point-of-sale system to show consumers how the subsidy is being applied to their purchases. Cathy Towtongie, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said NTI has publicly and privately called on the government to develop regulations that would make the program more transparent and accountable to Inuit. “This is only a small step in the right direction. Inuit want further changes, including involvement in the program’s decision-making process, including the engagement of NTI directly, and making decisions about the redesign of the program. NTI plans to continue to exert strong pressure on the current government, as well as the next government,” said Towtongie. The Nutrition North Canada program has been heavily criticized for years, most recently by the Auditor General, because users assert that the subsidy is not passed on to consumers.

Ontario Métis face higher risk than non-Aboriginal residents

A joint report from Cancer Care Ontario and the Métis Nation of Ontario outlines that the province’s Métis face higher cancer risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity than other Ontario residents. The report says Metis people, who tend to be under-identified or under-represented in Indigenous health research, are also less likely to be up to date with cancer screening tests. Dr. Loraine Marrett, a senior scientist at Cancer Care Ontario, said the data underlines that the Métis community would benefit from programs framed in their community- and family-centric culture. The study combined six years of data from Statistics Canada on the lifestyle factors that play the largest role in cancer risk.