Indigenous Health

Developed and implemented by public health experts with extensive experience of working with indigenous populations locally and globally, the objective of the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Health is to equip health professionals with skills and competencies that are necessary to engage in evidence-based public health practice at the leadership, management, and supervisory levels.

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them.[1]

There are approximately 300-500 million people across the globe who are variously identified as Indigenous, including about 5000 distinct groups in more than 70 countries.[2] Indigenous health examines health and wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples with emphasis on indigenous models and frameworks that are rooted in culture, language, identity, place and community history. Indigenous communities in the United States and globally have disproportionately worse health outcomes than the general population. Resource constraints and the continual evolution of public health threats compound existing health inequity for these communities, and raise constant challenges to public health personnel. In spite of these unique challenges, there are few public health training programs that are specifically designed to increase the capacity of current and future public health workforce for indigenous communities.

[1] Coates, K.S. (2004). A Global History of Indigenous Peoples: Struggle and Survival. Palgrave MacMillan, New York (2004)

[2] Maybury-Lewis, D. (2002). Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups and the State. Allyn and Baker, Needham, MA.