We used a novel measure of cultural efficacy to examine empirical pathways between enculturation, efficacy, and two wellbeing outcomes. Cultural factors are not consistently linked to better ...wellbeing in the academic literature despite widespread understanding of these processes in Indigenous communities. Healing pathways is a community‐based participatory study with eight reservations/reserves in the upper Midwest and Canada. This study uses data collected in 2017–2018 (n = 453, 58.1% women, mean age = 26.3 years) and structural equation modeling to test the relationships between enculturation, cultural efficacy, and mental health. The direct effect of enculturation on anxiety was positive. The indirect effect of enculturation via cultural efficacy was negatively associated with anxiety and positively associated with positive mental health. Cultural efficacy is an important linking variable through which the protective effects of culture manifest. The complex nature of culture must be met with innovative measures and deep understanding of Indigenous peoples to fully capture the protective role of culture.
Highlights
Empirical evidence often fails to reflect the innate wisdom within Indigenous communities.
Cultural efficacy considers the colonial impact on one's personal agency to engage culturally.
Cultural efficacy is important to consider when promoting Indigenous mental wellbeing.
In this study, we respond to calls for strengths‐based Indigenous research by highlighting American Indian and First Nations (Anishinaabe) perspectives on wellness. We engaged with Anishinaabe ...community members by using an iterative, collaborative Group Concept Mapping methodology to define strengths from a within‐culture lens. Participants (n = 13) shared what it means to live a good way of life/have wellness for Anishinaabe young adults, ranked/sorted their ideas, and shared their understanding of the map. Results were represented by nine clusters of wellness, which addressed aspects of self‐care, self‐determination, actualization, community connectedness, traditional knowledge, responsibility to family, compassionate respect toward others, enculturation, and connectedness with earth/ancestors. The clusters were interrelated, primarily in the relationship between self‐care and focus on others. The results are interpreted by the authors and Anishinaabe community members though the use of the Seven Grandfather Teachings, which provide a framework for understanding Anishinaabe wellness. The Seven Grandfather Teachings include Honesty (Gwayakwaadiziwin), Respect (Manaadendamowin), Humility (Dabaadendiziwin), Love (Zaagi'idiwin), Wisdom (Nibwaakaawin), Bravery/Courage (Aakode'ewin), and Truth (Debwewin).
Highlights
Group Concept Mapping was used to define wellness from a within‐culture, detailed vantage point.
Anishinaabe young adults shared what it means to live a good way of life/have wellness.
The Seven Grandfather Teachings provide a framework for understanding Anishinaabe wellness.
Community collaborators contributed substantively to the analysis and interpretation of results.
Indigenous Peoples and scholars call for strengths-based approaches to research inclusive of Indigenous resiliency and positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine positive mental ...health for Indigenous adults with type 2 diabetes and to determine if positive mental health is linked to community connectedness (a coping resource) and active coping (a coping response).
Participants (N = 194 at baseline) were randomly selected from clinical records, at least 18 years old with a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, and self-identified as American Indian.
Latent growth curve models revealed that average positive mental health was predicted to decrease over the four waves of the study, although not for participants with above-average active coping at baseline. Community connectedness at baseline was associated with higher initial levels of positive mental health. Within-person change in active coping and community connectedness were both associated with increases in positive mental health.
This study aligns with previous research demonstrating that coping can influence health outcomes, and furthers the stress process literature by showing that active coping and community connectedness can impact positive mental health for Indigenous adults with Type 2 Diabetes.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, FSPLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Objective:
The objective of this study is to understand how Indigenous language and spirituality revitalization efforts may affect mental health within Indigenous communities. Although Indigenous ...communities experience disproportionate rates of mental health problems, research supporting language and spirituality's role in improving mental health is under-researched and poorly understood.
Method:
Data for this study are from a Community-based Participatory Research Project involving five Anishinaabe tribes in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Participants were sampled from clinic records of adults with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, living on or near the reservation, and self-identifying as American Indian (mean age = 46.3; n = 191).
Result:
Structural equation modeling illustrates that language use in the home is associated with positive mental health through spiritual connectedness.
Conclusion:
Results support tribal community expressions of the positive effects of cultural involvement for Indigenous wellbeing, and improve what is known about the interconnectedness of language and spirituality.
Public Significance Statement
Traditional Indigenous language and spirituality are being revitalized by many American Indian communities after generations of genocide and forced assimilation. Cultural factors were examined, and results suggest language use in the home enhances spiritual connectedness through prayer, which improves mental wellbeing. Understanding the complex pathways to wellbeing will benefit policy, prevention, and educational efforts to improve health among communities that are often disproportionately burdened by mental illness and disease.
"Volunteer participation" refers to free engagement in activities that benefit someone or something else. Volunteering can produce many benefits for individuals and communities. However, current ...research examining volunteer participation often excludes diverse viewpoints on what constitutes volunteering, particularly the perspectives of North American Indigenous youth. This oversight may result from researchers' conceptualization and measurement of volunteering from a Western perspective. Utilizing data from the Healing Pathways (HP) project, a longitudinal, community-based participatory study in partnership with eight Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada, we provide a detailed description of volunteer participation and community and cultural engagement. Overall, we employ a community cultural wealth lens to emphasize the various strengths and sources of resilience that these communities possess. At the same time, we encourage scholars and the wider society to broaden their views of volunteering, community involvement, and giving back.
| Type 2 diabetes represents a major health disparity for many American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) communities, in which prevalence rates are more than double that of the general U.S. population. ...Diabetes is a major indicator for other comorbidities, including the leading cause of death for AIANs (i.e., cardiovascular disease). This study investigated associations between protective factors (social support and cultural factors) and self-reported empowerment to manage illness.
| Participants were drawn from a random sample of tribal clinic records. Data included results from computer-assisted personal interviews with 192 American Indian adults with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes living on or near a reservation. Community Research Councils, developed at each of the five partnering Anishinaabe reservations, oversaw protocols and procedures in this community-based participatory research collaboration.
| Multiple ordinary least squares regression models determined that general social support and diabetes-specific social support are positively related to diabetes empowerment. These associations persisted when both social support measures were added to the model, indicating independent effects of different types of social support. Cultural identity and cultural practices were positively related to diabetes empowerment in bivariate analyses; however, both measures dropped from statistical significance after accounting for all other covariates. An interaction term revealed a moderation effect through which cultural identity amplified the positive relationship between social support and diabetes empowerment.
| Results moderately support policy and risk-reduction efforts aiming at expanding social support networks into multiple domains and reinforcing cultural identity and cultural practices.
In recent years public health research has shifted to more strengths or asset-based approaches to health research but there is little understanding of what this concept means to Indigenous ...researchers. Therefore our purpose was to define an Indigenous strengths-based approach to health and well-being research.
Using Group Concept Mapping, Indigenous health researchers (N = 27) participated in three-phases. Phase 1: Participants provided 218 unique responses to the focus prompt "Indigenous Strengths-Based Health and Wellness Research…" Redundancies and irrelevant statements were removed using content analysis, resulting in a final set of 94 statements. Phase 2: Participants sorted statements into groupings and named these groupings. Participants rated each statement based on importance using a 4-point scale. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to create clusters based on how statements were grouped by participants. Phase 3: Two virtual meetings were held to share and invite researchers to collaboratively interpret results.
A six-cluster map representing the meaning of Indigenous strengths-based health and wellness research was created. Results of mean rating analysis showed all six clusters were rated on average as moderately important.
The definition of Indigenous strengths-based health research, created through collaboration with leading AI/AN health researchers, centers Indigenous knowledges and cultures while shifting the research narrative from one of illness to one of flourishing and relationality. This framework offers actionable steps to researchers, public health practitioners, funders, and institutions to promote relational, strengths-based research that has the potential to promote Indigenous health and wellness at individual, family, community, and population levels.
As global mental health research and programming proliferate, research that prioritizes women’s voices and examines marginalized women’s mental health outcomes in relation to exposure to violence at ...community and relational levels of the socioecological model is needed. In a mixed methods, transnational study, we examined armed conflict exposure, intimate partner violence (IPV), and depressive symptoms among 605 women in Northeastern Uganda. We used analysis of variance to test between groups of women who had experienced no IPV or armed conflict, IPV only, armed conflict only, and both; and linear regression to predict depressive symptoms. We used rapid ethnographic methods with a subsample (n = 21) to identify problem prioritization; and, to characterize women’s mental health experiences, we conducted follow up in-depth interviews (n = 15), which we analyzed with grounded theory methods. Thirty percent of the sample met the cut-off for probable major depressive disorder; women exposed to both IPV and armed conflict had significantly higher rates of depression than all other groups. While women attributed psychological symptoms primarily to IPV exposure, both past-year IPV and exposure to armed conflict were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Women identified socioeconomic neglect as having the most impact and described three interrelated mental health experiences that contribute to thoughts of escape, including escape through suicide. Policy efforts should be interprofessional, and specialists should collaborate to advance multi-pronged interventions and gender-informed implementation strategies for women’s wellbeing. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684319864366
The COVID-19 pandemic has had disproportionately severe impacts on Indigenous peoples in the United States compared to non-Indigenous populations. In addition to the threat of viral infection, ...COVID-19 poses increased risk for psychosocial stress that may widen already existing physical, mental, and behavioral health inequities experienced by Indigenous communities. In recognition of the impact of COVID-19 related psychosocial stressors on our tribal community partners, the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health Great Lakes Hub began sending holistic wellness boxes to our community partners in 11 tribal communities in the Midwestern United States and Canada in summer of 2020. Designed specifically to draw on culturally relevant sources of strength and resilience, these boxes contained a variety of items to support mental, emotional, cultural, and physical wellbeing. Feedback from recipients suggest that these wellness boxes provided a unique form of COVID-19 relief. Additional Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health offices have begun to adapt wellness boxes for the cultural context of their regions. This case study describes the conceptualization, creation, and contents of these wellness boxes and orients this intervention within a reflection on foundations of community-based participatory research, holistic relief, and drawing on cultural strengths in responding to COVID-19.
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