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Background The ongoing role of colonialism in producing health inequities is well-known. Postcolonialism is a theoretical approach that enables healthcare providers to better understand and address health inequities in society. While the importance of postcolonialism and health (PCH) in the education of clinicians has been recognized, the literature lacks guidance on how to incorporate PCH into healthcare training programs. This study explores the perspectives of key informants regarding content related to PCH that should be included in Canadian healthcare training programs, and how this content should be delivered. Methods This qualitative study involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nineteen individuals with insight into PCH in Canada. Data were analyzed collaboratively to identify, code and translate key emergent themes according to the six phases of the DEPICT method. Results Three themes emerged related to incorporating PCH into Canadian healthcare training programs: (1) content related to PCH that should be taught; (2) how this content should be delivered, including teaching strategies, who should teach this content and when content should be taught, and; (3) why this content should be taught. For the Canadian context, participants advised that PCH content should include a foundational history of colonization of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, how structures rooted in colonialism continue to produce health inequities, and how Canadian clinicians’ own experiences of privilege and oppression affect their practice. Participants also advised that this content should be integrated longitudinally through a variety of interactive teaching strategies and developed in collaboration with Aboriginal partners to address health inequities. Conclusions These findings reinforce that clinicians and educators must understand health and healthcare as situated in social, political and historical contexts rooted in colonialism. Postcolonialism enables learners to understand and respond to how colonialism creates and sustains health inequities. This empirical study provides educators with guidance regarding PCH content and delivery strategies for healthcare training programs. More broadly, this study joins the chorus of voices calling for critical reflection on the limits and harms of an exclusively Western worldview, and the need for action to name and correct past wrongs in the spirit of reconciliation and justice for all.

Despite attempts, policy silences continue to create barriers to addressing the healthcare needs of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The purpose of this article is to answer the question, if what we have in Canada is an Aboriginal health policy patchwork that fails to address inequities, then what would a Healthy Aboriginal Health Policy framework look like? The data collected included federal, provincial and territorial health policies and legislation that contain Aboriginal, First Nation, Inuit and/or Métis-specific provisions available on the internet. Key websites included the Parliamentary Library, federal, provincial and territorial health and Aboriginal websites, as well as the Department of Justice Canada, Statistics Canada and the Aboriginal Canada Portal. The Indian Act gives the Governor in Council the authority to make health regulations. The First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) of Health Canada historically provided health services to First Nations and Inuit, as a matter of policy. FNIHB's policies are few, and apply only to Status Indians and Inuit. Health legislation in 2 territories and 4 provinces contain no provision to clarify their responsibilities. In provinces where provisions exist, they broadly focus on jurisdiction. Few Aboriginal-specific policies and policy frameworks exist. Generally, these apply to some Aboriginal peoples and exclude others. Although some Aboriginal-specific provisions exist in some legislation, and some policies are in place, significant gaps and jurisdictional ambiguities remain. This policy patchwork perpetuates confusion. A national First Nation, Inuit and Métis policy framework is needed to address this issue.

Although small beings such as the qupirruit (insects and worms) appear in many different contexts in Inuit culture, they have not received much attention from scholars. In this paper we examine the symbolism associated with these small animals. We show that their small size makes them suitable to operate on the level of the tarniq, a miniature image of a being. We discuss how insects often connect different scales and easily transform into other beings. We first deal with the perceptions of insects as they take shape in narratives and practices, and their roles in the manufacture and use of amulets. Then we move to a more specific analysis of the distinctive features of the various qupirruit.

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a common pool resource that contributes to both the subsistence and monetary aspects of the Nunavut mixed economy through its use as food, the sale of hides in the fur trade, and sport hunt outfitting. Sport hunting is more financially profitable than subsistence hunting; however, the proportion of the polar bear quota devoted to the sport hunt has become relatively stable at approximately 20% across Nunavut. This ratio suggests local Inuit organizations are not using a neoclassical economic model based on profit maximization. This paper examines local-level hunting organizations and their institutions (as sets of rules) governing the sport and Inuit subsistence hunts from both formalist and substantivist economic perspectives. It concludes that profit maximization is used within the sport hunting sphere, which fits a neoclassical model of economic rationality. A second and parallel system, better viewed through the substantivist perspective, demonstrates that the communities focus on longer-term goals to maintain and reproduce the socio-economic system of the subsistence economy, which is predicated on maintaining social, human-environment, and human-polar bear relations.

The National Child Welfare Resource Center for Tribes, a member of the Children’s Bureau Child Welfare Training and Technical Assistance Network, conducted a national needs assessment of tribal child welfare. This assessment explored current practices in tribal child welfare to identify unique systemic strengths and challenges. A culturally based, multi-method design yielded findings in five areas: tribal child welfare practice, foster care and adoption, the Indian Child Welfare Act, legal and judicial, and program operations.

American Indian/Alaska Native tribal governments are sovereign entities with inherent authority to create laws and enact health regulations. Laws are an essential tool for ensuring effective public health responses to emerging threats. To analyze how tribal laws support public health practice in tribal communities, we reviewed tribal legal documentation available through online databases and talked with subject-matter experts in tribal public health law. Of the 70 tribal codes we found, 14 (20%) had no clearly identifiable public health provisions. The public health–related statutes within the remaining codes were rarely well integrated or comprehensive. Our findings provide an evidence base to help tribal leaders strengthen public health legal foundations in tribal communities.

From 2008–2010, a California Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) addressed the disproportionality of African American and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) children in public child welfare services in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Program, the Child and Family Policy Institute of California, and the California Department of Social Services. The result was the development of the Continuum of Readiness, to be utilized by California counties to make strategic decisions to achieve Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) compliance and address AI/AN disproportionality through collaboration with tribes and urban Indian communities.

Currently, there are 565 federally recognized tribes in the United States who are independent sovereign nations. These tribes have varying capacities to manage and administer child welfare programs. Most provide some type of child welfare service to the children and families within their tribal land. However, there are no national resources to document the number of children in foster care or the extent of abuse and neglect in the families served by tribal child welfare agencies. Information is only known about those Native American/Alaska Native families and children who are reported to state child protection agencies. Native American children represented 0.9% of all children in the United States in the late 1990s, but they comprised 3.1% of the substitute care population in state-run child welfare systems (Morrison, et al., 2010). Incident rates of child welfare referrals, substantiated referrals, and foster care placement among Native American children and families are relatively high compared to other ethnic groups (Earle & Cross, 2001) but precise interpretation of Native American status is difficult due to variations in child welfare reporting systems (Magruder & Shaw, 2008).

Colonialism infuses the experience of First Peoples around the world, across the past, present, and future continuum. Its destructive force extends past First Peoples, eroding the understanding of non-Aboriginal peoples and to diminishing the fundamental national values of democracy, freedom, justice, and dignity for all, even in the most developed nations. For a colonial power to be successful, it must take the land, control the natural resources, suppress self-governance, delegitimize culture - and, finally, it must take the children. Child welfare policy and practice has been no exception; it has just recently begun to acknowledge its colonial culture and take steps to address it in some parts of the world. Today, the Indigenous adults and young people who have lived through a devastating history of colonialism and continue to be touched by the colonial vestiges in child welfare are looking for their true identities and are still suffering the trauma of separation and loss. Adapted from the source document. © (2007) Child Welfare League of America. Reprinted by permission

The Kachemak tradition was established by ca. 3000 B.P. in Kachemak Bay. Probably somewhat later a variant termed Riverine Kachemak, with a population adapted to salmon and terrestrial resources, appeared on the northern Kenai Peninsula. The Kachemak tradition people seem to have abandoned Kachemak Bay by ca. 1400 B.P. Seven of 12 available Kachemak tradition dates predate 1400 B.P. even at two sigma. Scattered younger dates are thus suspect outliers. The end of Riverine Kachemak tradition has been placed at ca. 1000 B.P., at which time the population was supposedly replaced by in-migrating groups ancestral to the Dena'ina Athapaskans. Close examination of the numerous available radiocarbon dates shows that most Riverine Kachemak dates cluster in the early centuries of the First Millennium A.D. and most Dena'ina dates substantially postdate 1000 A.D. Probably the Riverine Kachemak and Dena'ina peoples never met on the Kenai River. However, the correspondence in date ranges between Kachemak Bay and Riverine Kachemak is striking, suggesting their fates were linked. Both traditions collapsed by 1400–1500 B.P. The causes are probably multiple but do not include cultural replacement.