UW professors Jane Simoni and Karina Walters’ Indigenist Stress-Coping Model is referenced in this CBC article about Canada’s crystal meth crisis.
Crystal meth is a colonial crisis and its root causes must be addressed
Historic and current factors place some populations at higher risk of harmful drug use
Marcia Anderson, Michael Champagne · for CBC NewsAlcohol.
Sniffing gasoline.
Super juice.
Opioids — both prescription and non-prescription.
And now crystal meth.
Health organizations, politicians and the media have described the rises and falls in the harmful use of each of these substances as crises.
The drugs alone are not the crisis and as long as we continue to focus just on the drugs, we will see one fall and another one rise up in in its place.
The real crises are the historic and current factors that place some populations at higher risk of harmful drug use than others.
A 2016 Peg report said the substance abuse rate among people age 10 and up in Point Douglas is 9.8 per cent, compared to 2.6 per cent in Fort Garry. One of the key ways these neighbourhoods differ is in rates of poverty. The median income in Point Douglas is around $33,000 compared to $63,000 in Fort Garry.
Another is who lives in the neighborhood. Almost 30 per cent of residents of Point Douglas self-identified as Aboriginal on the last census, compared to 5.3 per cent in Fort Garry.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada final reports released in 2015 called on us to understand the current state of Indigenous health is a result of previous government policy, and we need to understand harmful drug use in this context also.
Systemic roots
University of Washington professors Karina Walters and Jane Simoni have developed what they call an Indigenist Stress-Coping Model.
Their research explains that a person's health experience is determined by the balance between traumas or stressors (such as childhood apprehension, intergenerational impacts of residential schools, poverty and experiences of racism) and buffers (such as strong cultural identity, connection to family, community and culture, participation in traditional activities and ceremonies). When there are more stressors or traumas than there are buffers, it is completely expected that a person or a population will experience more negative impacts to their physical and mental health, and is more likely to experience harmful substance use.
Read the entire article here .