A new study by the University of British Columbia Okanagan indicates that Indigenous people have the worst health outcomes of any residents in the country.
The study by assistant professor Dr. Min Hu confirms Indigenous people, specifically women living off-reserve, are dealing with a large gap in health equity.
“The statistics are clear. Indigenous males have better health outcomes than Indigenous females,” says Hu. “However, we already know Indigenous people have worse health than many other populations in Canada. And my research finds Indigenous women have the worst of the worst when it comes to health conditions.”
Dr. Hu teaches economics in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and his latest study was published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Dr. Hu compared data collected from four cycles of Aboriginal People Surveys collected from 2001 to 2017. Each survey is a large, nationally representative cross-sectional survey of more than 20,000 Indigenous peoples living off-reserve where participants were asked to self-assess their health with ratings from poor to excellent.
“This is the first time a study investigates the difference in gender health of Canada’s Indigenous people,” Dr. Hu says. “And each survey presents the same—and quite a clear picture—that Indigenous women who live off-reserve, do not have the same positive health outcomes as their male counterparts.”
