Commentary: Indigenous Health Special Issue

Abstract

This commentary highlights indigenous public health research from a special issue of the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction dealing with child maltreatment, mental health, substance abuse and gambling. We focus on the emerging and growing research movement in Indigenous research through three important themes: 1) worldview and ethics; 2) culturally based research methods; and 3) the need to research both the sources and symptoms of disadvantage. The articles in this issue are then framed within a public health approach (surveillance, identification of risk and protective factors, intervention-evaluation and implementation).

Aboriginal Gambling and Problem Gambling: A Review

“…Aboriginal input to identify appropriate cultural philosophies, values and beliefs is absolutely essential for underpinning awareness and information messages about gambling risk factors. If, as Tonmyr and Blackstock ( 2010 ) assert, the strongest research is that which takes Aboriginal cultural contexts into account at every step and interprets the research based on its cultural and contextual validity, then a corollary is that the strongest public health strategies needs similar involvement.…”

“…Pathological gambling may be a learned defence to escape, dissociate or relieve stress from childhood trauma (Dion et al 2010 ). First Nation Canadians removed from their families as children to live in residential schools have reported grief and loss as a result of childhood abuse, loss of parental care, and loss of traditional cultural practices (Hewitt 1994 ; Tonmyr and Blackstock 2010 ). In a review of 13 child sexual abuse studies, two conducted with First Nation Canadians, pathological gambling was said to be a maladaptive coping strategy to avoid abuse-traumatic memories (Dion et al 2010 ).…”