Module 1 Section 1

Question 1

definition of health

Answer 1

• WHO Definition: A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not simply the absence of disease or infirmity.
• Health definitions vary depending on lived experience, culture, and priorities.

Question 2

holistic health

Answer 2

• Includes body, mind, spirit, and often community (emotional, social, cultural well-being).
• Holistic framework quote (WHO): Health is interconnected, multi-causal, requires novel ways of thinking to predict and control outcomes.
• Holistic: Concerned with complete systems rather than the analysis or treatment of individual parts

Question 3

two-eyes seeing approach

Answer 3

• Origin: Mi’kmaq First Nations; term by Elder Albert Marshall.
• Definition: Combines strengths of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, with no single perspective being superior.
• Western approaches: Data-driven, conventional scientific methods.
• Indigenous approaches: Emphasize love, honesty, humility, respect, building trust and safe spaces.
• Purpose: Helps address impacts of colonization and marginalization, improves health outcomes.

Question 4

Indigenous Medicine Wheel (Anishinaabe)

Answer 4

• Represents balance of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual health.
• Centre: Learning, beauty, harmony.
• Turn clockwise (Anishinaabe).
• Can exist in many forms like paintings and land formations
• Different Indigenous communities use the medicine wheel to represent the natural world in many different ways

Question 5

North – Mental

Answer 5

• Colour: White
• Animal: Deer
• Medicine: Sweetgrass
• Season: Winter
• Practices: Family time, learning from Elders, oral stories

Question 6

East - Spiritual

Answer 6

• Colour: Yellow
• Animal: Eagle
• Medicine: Tobacco
• Season: Spring
• Practices: Smudging, singing, dancing, belief in Creator, connecting with nature

Question 7

South - Emotional

Answer 7

• Colour: Red
• Animal: Coyote
• Medicine: Cedar
• Season: Summer
• Practices: Positive self-image, self-esteem, self-love, supportive environment

Question 8

West - Physical

Answer 8

• Colour: Black
• Animal: Bear
• Medicine: Sage
• Season: Autumn
• Practices: Regular exercise, balanced diet, adequate sleep

Question 9

Medicine wheels from different communities

Answer 9

• Medicine wheel is a very powerful symbol of native American spirituality
• it represents the many cycles that appear in the natural world
• The cycles of night and day, of seasons, and of birth, life and death.

Question 10

MI’KMAW spirituality - each nation has own understanding of the medicine wheel

Answer 10

• Contains four colours red, white yellow, black
• These colours represent the four races of man of which native americans were aware long before the arrival of europeans
• Each direction has an associated spirit helper, an element and a sacred medicine
• Discussion usually starts in the east direction where sun rises and travels in a clockwise direction
• East is direction of beginnings west is direction of endings

Question 11

Haudenosaunee

Answer 11

• Seven directions → framework for public health that honours the cylcic nature of life and the birth of new ideas
• Holisic view of balance and interconnectedness
• North
• South
• East
• West
• Center
• Above
• Below

Question 12

Health-Promoting Conditions

Answer 12

• Complete health requires access to: Family doctor, emergency health services, specialists, diagnostics, vaccines, medications (timely and affordable). Should be available in a timely manner and without great financial burden
• Adequate housing: Safe, secure, dignified living conditions.
• Safe working conditions: Proper training, occupational hazard protection, supportive environment.
• Nutritious food: Accessible, affordable, diverse, sufficient for growth and energy.

Question 13

Lack of Health - Promoting Conditions (Canada – Indigenous Context)

Answer 13

• Health services: Higher rates of tuberculosis (8–10x non-Indigenous), suicide twice as high in adults, poor integration of Indigenous healing practices.
• Housing: 40% of homes on reserves need repair; overcrowding 6× higher on reserve; issues with funding, supplies, mortgages (by the crown → limited funding for band councils so must choose between fixing houses in need of repair or putting money towards new construction to ease housing shortages).
• Working conditions: More hazardous jobs, seasonal/part-time work, higher workplace injuries, barriers: racism, poverty, education, geography, intergenerational trauma.
• Food: Higher food insecurity (4× hunger risk), many communities under boil-water advisories.

Question 14

The Crown

Answer 14

• The Crown is an abstract concept that represents the state and its government.
• Under Canada’s democratic system, the Crown is a source of sovereign authority, which performs part of the country’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers on the binding advice, or through the actions of,
  members of parliament, ministers, or judges.

Question 15

Band Council

Answer 15

Group responsible for the administration and governance of Indigenous
band/community affairs. Their responsibilities include decisions regarding education, housing, water
and sewage, roads, community businesses, and services. Some band councils have hereditary chiefs,
while others have elected chiefs

Question 16

Intergenerational Trauma

Answer 16

Also known as transgenerational trauma, occurs when untreated trauma-
related stress that is experienced by survivors is passed onto subsequent generations. When the
trauma is unaddressed, it can develop into destructive behaviour over time, which can become
normalized within a family. Such behaviours can include family violence, depression, anxiety,
addictions, and/or suicidal thoughts. For some Indigenous Peoples in Canada, residential schools were
a big source of intergenerational trauma

Question 17

Examples of Positive Change

Answer 17

Opaskwayak Cree Nation (Manitoba):
- Established their own child/family services system (2020).
- Raised Pride flag (2020) to promote equality (LGBTQ2S+ inclusion).

Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte:
- Community Health Program: prenatal classes, diabetes services, immunizations, food vouchers for pregnant women.
- Open to all, regardless of status.

Question 18

Promoting Health

Answer 18

• Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte established health programs that promote health and provides health services to all community members independent of status and whether a person is on or off reserve
• Services include: weight, blood pressure and blood sugar checks, immunization, prenatal classes and diabetic services
• Includes nurses, community health representatives, medical transport coordinator, chiropodist, lactation consultant

Question 19

Indian Act of 1876 - Institutionalized assimilation

Answer 19

• Efforts to assimilate Indigenous people were institutionalized
• The Act defined who was “Indian” without consultation
• Assimilation tool: imposed Western governance, stripped women of status if marrying settlers, banned traditional leadership, enforced agriculture/Christianization.
• Ongoing effects: health inequities, intergenerational trauma, unsafe living/working conditions
• Indigenous women lost status if marrying settlers
• Imposed Western governance; excluded Indigenous women; undermined traditional leadership.
• Long-term effects: Cultural disconnection, loss of healers, persistent barriers to health services, housing, social support
• Assimilation → where individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. Involves taking on the traits of the ‘dominant’ culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society
• Indian → the term Indian was used because Columbus believed that he had reached South Asia when he came to North America, and mislabelled the native population as Indian. Today, some people use the word to reclaim their identities as Indigenous Peoples, while others view it as a symbol of oppression

Question 20

Global and Public Health

Answer 20

• Global Health: Improving equity worldwide; interdisciplinary; prevention focus; population-based.
• Public Health: Organized societal efforts; 3 pillars = prevention, protection, promotion

Question 21

WHO (est. 1948)

Answer 21

• In order to achieve global health, the WHO was established
• Acts as the direction and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system
• Works to improve international health conditions through increased global access to medicine, epidemic surveillance, prevention and control, initiating large-scale health promotion and policy campaigns, providing technical support to countries
• Over 7,000 people from more than 150 countries work for the WHO, with their headquarters based in Geneva Switzerland
• Working to promote health globally for over 70 years
• April 7th is celebrated globally every year as World Health Day

Question 22

Global Health as a Discipline

Answer 22

Established on the basis of 4 factors
1. Data and evidence → decision making in global health is based on data and evidence (vital stats, surveillance)
2. Population Focused → global health is focused on populations rather than individuals
3. Social justice → global health has the goal of social justice and equity
4. Emphasis on prevention → global health places emphasis on prevention rather than curative care

Question 23

What is Public Health

Answer 23

1. Government contributions and Resources → proper health programs, services and polices in place
2. Societal contributions → organized efforts of society to use resources and follow health guidelines
3. Public health → health maintenance, injury prevention and illness prevention
   - Promotes the highest attainment of health for all people and deals with health from a population perception
   - Ensures that health is addressed early in life
   - Access to health resources are available as needed
   - Public health deals with the health of a population, which can be a local community or a nation, whereas global health specifically addresses health issues on a worldwide scale

Question 24

The Components of Public Health

Answer 24

Public health aims to keep the population healthy through a combination of several components → promotion, protection, prevention

Question 25

Public Health Video

Answer 25

- Public health programs identify the risks that affect different people in different places at different stages in life - Find the best ways to minimize them - Gives everyone chance to live long heath fulfilling lives - Preventing disease: promote breastfeeding, immunization and antibiotics - Where children have no access to safe water or sanitation: public health programs can make water safe and conditions sanitary - Prolonging life: where research shows risk of developing conditions public health applies it to the whole world - helps us lead active lives away from danger - Promoting health: by preventing, detecting and treating disease as effectively as we can public health will help to halt the costs of treatment - Understand the huge impact of financial, social and environmental circumstances have on our health - Making health achievable

Question 26

WHO Timeline Highlights

Answer 26

- 1948: WHO formed; Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted. - 1950s: Smallpox campaign. 1960s: Malaria eradication efforts. - 1970s: Expanded immunization, Alma-Ata declaration. - 1980s: Smallpox eradicated; HIV/AIDS response. - 1990s: Leprosy elimination, Hep B vaccine. - 2000s: Millennium Development Goals. - 2010s: SDGs; chronic disease prevention. - 2020s: COVID-19 pandemic declared March 11, 2020

Question 27

Human Rights - Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Answer 27

- Was created to recognize the basic freedoms that all people should have - Health as a basic freedom, regardless of race, sex, status, language, religion, poverty, bird, or other status - Article 25: is concerned with our human right to healthRight to health, food, housing, medical care, social security. - UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007): Expanded protections, right to traditional medicines, survival, dignity, well-being

Question 28

Pronouns and Gender Inclusivity Language

Answer 28

- Gender-neutral language: not all caregivers are women, not all individuals with uteruses identify as female respect pronouns. - Two-Spirit identity: Indigenous term for dual masculine/feminine spirit, reclaiming traditions harmed by colonization