Wellness, not illness, is the focus of a new international journal for indigenous health launched this month by the Centre for Aboriginal Health Research at the University of Victoria.
鈥淥ne of the things we鈥檙e trying to do is broaden the scope to indigenous people globally,鈥� said Charlotte Reading, centre director and editor of the International Journal of Indigenous Health.
鈥淲e鈥檙e also taking a strength-based and resiliency approach, looking at what makes people well, not just sick.鈥�
The peer-reviewed journal is the only journal to focus on indigenous health from an international perspective. The journal inherited the rights of the defunct journal produced by the National Aboriginal Health Organization and will be published twice a year online with free access to all.
Current articles include: Aboriginal Children and Physical Pain: What Do We Know?, Assessment of Tuberculosis Outbreak Definitions for a First Nations On-Reserve Context and I Like to Think I鈥檓 a Pretty Safe Guy but Sometimes a 40-Pounder Will Change That: A Mixed Methods Study of Substance Use and Sexual Risk Among Aboriginal Young People.
Rod McCormick, chairman of the Aboriginal Child and Maternal Health program at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, said the journal is significant because the research landscape regarding indigenous people is shifting from an exploitive historical place to one more inclusive.
鈥淚 believe that recent federal government cutbacks to National Aboriginal Organizations and to tribal councils has greatly reduced the capacity for aboriginal peoples in sa国际传媒 to collect and disseminate relevant research findings,鈥� said McCormick, who is also Mohawk.
鈥淭his journal demonstrates that aboriginal people will not sit idly by and let the government take away our right to obtain and share knowledge about our own health and welfare.鈥�
He hopes the journal will produce culturally relevant, responsible and respectful research.
鈥淔ocusing on what works versus what doesn鈥檛 work leads to empowerment and the reduction of stigmatization,鈥� he said.
For more information, visit: uvic.ca/ijih
