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Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique logoLink to Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique
. 2005 Mar 1;96(Suppl 2):S45–S61. doi: 10.1007/BF03403702

The Embodiment of Inequity: Health Disparities in Aboriginal Canada

Naomi Adelson 1,✉
PMCID: PMC6975716  PMID: 16078555

Abstract

Health disparities are, first and foremost, those indicators of a relative disproportionate burden of disease on a particular population. Health inequities point to the underlying causes of the disparities, many if not most of which sit largely outside of the typically constituted domain of “health”. The literature reviewed for this synthesis document indicates that time and again health disparities are directly and indirectly associated with social, economic, cultural and political inequities; the end result of which is a disproportionate burden of ill health and social suffering upon the Aboriginal populations of Canada. In analyses of health disparities, it is as important to navigate the interstices between the person and the wider social and historical contexts as it is to pay attention to the individual effects of inequity. Research and policy must address the contemporary realities of Aboriginal health and well-being, including the individual and community-based effects of health disparities and the direct and indirect sources of those disparities.

MeSH terms: Indians, North American, First Nations, Canada, Health Disparities, Social Sciences, Colonialism

Footnotes

Acknowledgements and Sources of Support: The Reducing Health Disparities Cross-cutting Initiative, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, commissioned an initial draft of this article for an International Think-Tank held in Ottawa, Sept. 21–23, 2003. The author wishes to acknowledge the Think-Tank participants for a stimulating discussion of an earlier draft of this paper, and thanks Ms. Elizabeth Guerrier for research assistance on both the original synthesis paper and the current supplement article. Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Users are forbidden to copy this material and/or redisseminate the data, in an original or modified form for commercial purposes, without the expressed permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada’s Regional Offices, its World Wide Web site at https://doi.org/www.statcan.ca, and its toll-free access number 1–800–263–1136.

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