CMAJ © 2010 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors

• Main Authors: Zhong-cheng Luo, Md Phd, Sacha Senécal Phd, Fabienne Simonet Ms, Éric Guimond Phd
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Nunavik; Nunavut; inuit; Inuvialuit
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.618.3241; http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2010/01/25/cmaj.082042.full.pdf

Birth outcomes are worse in Aboriginal than in non-Aboriginal populations in many developed countries,including the United States, Australia and Canada.1−18 Inuit are the smallest Aboriginal group in Canada, with a population of about 45 000.19 Some regional and community studies have shown that Inuit experience the highest rates of infant mortality in Canada.16−18 However, data are lacking at the national level on birth outcomes among Inuit owing to the absence of Aboriginal identifiers on birth registration forms in most provinces. In Canada, over 80 % of all Inuit reside in one of four vast, sparsely populated regions: the Inuvialuit region of the North-west Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik (northern Quebec) and Nunatsiavut (northern coast of Labrador) (Figure 1). Taken together, 80 % of the population in those four regions is Inuit,20 and 90 % of the births are to Inuit women according to 2006 census data. This creates an opportunity to examine