Smart Indigenous Youth: The Smart Platform Policy Solution for Systems Integration to Address Indigenous Youth Mental Health

Abstract

Indigenous youth mental health is an urgent public health issue, which cannot be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. The success of health policies in Indigenous communities is dependent on bottom-up, culturally appropriate, and strengths-based prevention strategies. In order to maximize the effectiveness of these strategies, they need to be embedded in replicable and contextually relevant mechanisms such as school curricula across multiple communities. Moreover, to engage youth in the twenty-first century, especially in rural and remote areas, it is imperative to leverage ubiquitous mobile tools that empower Indigenous youth and facilitate novel Two-Eyed Seeing solutions. Smart Indigenous Youth is a 5-year community trial, which aims to improve Indigenous youth mental health by embedding a culturally appropriate digital health initiative into school curricula in rural and remote Indigenous communities in Canada. This policy analysis explores the benefits of such upstream initiatives. More importantly, this article describes evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers to implementation through the integration of citizen science and community-based participatory research action.

Cannabis use and suicidal ideation among youth: Can we democratize school policies using digital citizen science?

“…However, there is a dearth of evidence that takes into account school policies in understanding the relationship between cannabis use and youth mental health. In particular existing methods do not provide youth or educators a voice to inform and influence school policies [ 24 ].…”

The Impact of Culture, Identity and Intergenerational Connections on Indigenous Youth Mental Health: Qualitative Findings from a Longitudinal Digital Health Community Trial

“…SIY is part of the Smart Platform, a citizen science and mobile health initiative for ethical engagement, integrated knowledge translation, and policy and real-time interventions (Katapally, 2019). The Smart Platform uses digital citizen science to co-create knowledge with all participants (Katapally, 2020). SIY uses a Two-Eyed Seeing approach to work with, and alongside Indigenous communities.…”

“…Two-Eyed Seeing, conceptualized by Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, notes that "there are diverse understandings of the world and that by acknowledging and respecting a diversity of perspectives (without perpetuating the dominance of one over another) we can build an understanding of health that lends itself to dealing with some of the most pressing health issues facing Indigenous peoples and communities" (Martin, 2012, p. 24). SIY integrates Traditional Knowledge and digital citizen science through community-based participatory research approaches (Katapally 2019;Katapally, 2020) to address health issues facing Indigenous peoples and communities" (Martin, 2012, p. 24). This approach involves community members at each step of the research process, seeking to build equity into academic projects (Coppola, Holt, & McHugh, 2020, p. 321).…”

“…The Youth Citizen Scientist (YCS) Councils consist of youth who participated in the larger project and agreed to participate in the focus groups. Moreover, during the 4-month intervention period from January to May 2019, YCSs engaged with researchers in real-time using their own smartphones via a custom-built application to provide their perceptions of the initiative (Katapally, 2020). This longitudinal qualitative study includes data from the preand post-intervention focus groups of one of the participating schools.…”

“…The strengths of the study are the study design, youth empowerment, mixed methods and culturally respectful approach, the innovative citizen science strategies using digital technology to engage youth, and the holistic health benefits from participating (Katapally, 2020). Youth were empowered as citizen scientists through the focus group talking circle approach, which allowed them space to voice their thoughts and reflect on their identity and cultural needs.…”