Access to land and nature as health determinants: a qualitative analysis exploring meaningful human-nature relationships among Indigenous youth in central Canada

BACKGROUND

Human relationships with and connections to nature and the "land" are a commonly accepted Social Determinant of Health. Greater knowledge about these relationships can inform public health policies and interventions focused on health equity among Indigenous populations. Two research questions were explored: (1) what are the experiences of meaningful human-nature relationships among Indigenous youth within central Canada; and (2) how do these relationships function as a determinant of health and wellness within their lives.

METHODS

Drawing from three community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects within two urban centers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the integrated qualitative findings presented here involved 92 interviews with 52 Indigenous youth that occurred over a period of nine years (2014-2023). Informed by "two-eyed seeing," this analysis combined Indigenous Methodologies and a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach.

RESULTS

Our integrative analysis revealed three cross-cutting themes about meaningful human-nature relationships: (1) promoting cultural belonging and positive identity; (2) connecting to community and family; and (3) supporting spiritual health and relationships. The experiences of young people also emphasized barriers to land and nature access within their local environments.

DISCUSSION

Policies, practices, and interventions aimed at strengthening urban Indigenous young peoples' relationships to and connections with nature and the land can have a positive impact on their health and wellness. Public Health systems and healthcare providers can learn about leveraging the health benefits of human-nature relationships at individual and community levels, and this is particularly vital for those working to advance health equity among Indigenous populations.

Spiritual Health and Its Determinants Among Urban Adolescents in Northern India: A Cross-Sectional Survey

INTRODUCTION

Spiritual health is an important dimension of positive health and is often ignored as it is not amenable to measurement. The present study was conducted to generate relevant evidence on spiritual health among adolescents living in urban areas of Northern India.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was done from June 2019 - May 2020 in an urban area of Northern India on a sample of 300 adolescents selected purposively. After collection of demographic details of the participants, the Index of Core Spiritual Experiences (INSPIRIT) tool was used to capture their spiritual health.

RESULTS

The Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.832 (0.797-0.863) indicating good internal consistency of the measure. As far as spiritual health is concerned, 217 (72.3%) of the study participants scored medium-high to high, followed by 83 (27.7%) who scored medium-low to low on the spiritual health scale. Adjusted multivariate analysis using binary logistic regression showed that positive traits like caring (odds ratio (OR) 1.19, 95% CI: 1.08-1.33), connection to school (OR 1.16, 95% CI: 1.04-1.29), having positive identity (OR 1.19, 95% CI: 1.04-1.36) and having highly educated (post-graduate) parents (OR 2.18, 95% CI: 1.13-4.21) lead to significantly higher spiritual health scores.  Discussion: Although spiritual health is not routinely measured among adolescents, the current study demonstrated high levels of spiritual health among half of the urban adolescents. Parental education was found to have a positive association with spiritual health scores, indicating the indirect effect of parental spiritual inclination. The study has important implications for policy, as it demonstrates the feasibility of measuring a covert dimension of health which tends to have an indirect effect on holistic youth development.