Overview

The Self-Determination Assessment & Advocacy Tool is IHEI’s practical framework to ensure decolonizing work in public health and data systems is real, guided, and protected—especially inside spaces not led by Native people or grounded in Indigenous values. It helps institutions, researchers, and community partners examine whether policies and practices strengthen or undermine Indigenous self-determination, and it pairs assessment with an advocacy pathway to move from awareness to structural change. 

Why this matters: western/colonial data systems are embedded with harmful practices that produce deficit narratives about Native peoples and fuel invisibility through misclassification and undercounting; these patterns reproduce inequity and block resources. Naming colonialism—and replacing its practices—is essential to health and data justice.

The tool is designed for public health institutions rooted in colonial frameworks and for practitioners trained within those systems, as well as for community partners. It supports reflective self-assessment, shared accountability, and relational transformation—so actions align with Indigenous values of reciprocity, relationality, and collective care.