Indigenous Values and Health Systems Stewardship in Circumpolar Countries

• Published in: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Main Authors: Susan Chatwood, Francois Paulette, G. Ross Baker, Astrid M. A. Eriksen, Ketil Lenert Hansen, Heidi Eriksen, Vanessa Hiratsuka, Josée Lavoie, Wendy Lou, Ian Mauro, James Orbinski, Nathalie Pambrun, Hanna Retallack, Adalsteinn Brown
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017
• Subjects: health systems; values; indigenous; circumpolar comparison; stewardship; holistic approaches; Medicine; R; Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121462; https://doaj.org/article/33a021bb8edf4dc6aa4feb588d03367c

Circumpolar regions, and the nations within which they reside, have recently gained international attention because of shared and pressing public policy issues such as climate change, resource development, endangered wildlife and sovereignty disputes. In a call for national and circumpolar action on shared areas of concern, the Arctic states health ministers recently met and signed a declaration that identified shared priorities for international cooperation. Among the areas for collaboration raised, the declaration highlighted the importance of enhancing intercultural understanding, promoting culturally appropriate health care delivery and strengthening circumpolar collaboration in culturally appropriate health care delivery. This paper responds to the opportunity for further study to fully understand indigenous values and contexts, and presents these as they may apply to a framework that will support international comparisons and systems improvements within circumpolar regions. We explored the value base of indigenous peoples and provide considerations on how these values might interface with national values, health systems values and value bases between indigenous nations particularly in the context of health system policy-making that is inevitably shared between indigenous communities and jurisdictional or federal governments. Through a mixed methods nominal consensus process, nine values were identified and described: humanity, cultural responsiveness, teaching, nourishment, community voice, kinship, respect, holism and empowerment.