Indigenous communities in Quebec have quickly mobilized to act in response to COVID-19: across 55 communities from 11 different Nations, a remarkable wave of community action has emerged in response to the pandemic. While public health proactivity in implementing preventive measures to limit the spread of the virus has certainly had a positive impact, it appears that formal and informal community mobilization initiatives have also played an important role in protecting the health of Indigenous people. The significant number of community-level actions put in place during the pandemic demonstrates Indigenous self-determination, adaptability, capacity and proactivity when addressing health issues, reducing the impact of disease and adversity on individuals and families, but also seeking to balance health equity within the population. Despite its importance, however, this phenomenon does not appear to have been studied to date, research interest being mainly directed towards clinical, pharmacological, and public health system responses to the pandemic. In the current context, it is important to document these actions across the Indigenous nations of Quebec to acknowledge, learn from, support and integrate them with other levels of public health response.
Having noticed the large number of community actions implemented by Indigenous peoples in Quebec at the onset of the pandemic, we quickly undertook a comprehensive process of identifying these initiatives through various social media and other online resources. Through a systematic survey of social media and internet sources, we have created the Quebec Indigenous Community Asset Mobilization (QICAM) database. The database catalogues instances of community asset mobilization that demonstrate that Indigenous communities have mobilized their resources and infrastructure and built community capacity to address the various impacts of the pandemic. The range of community actions is extensive, adapted to local contexts, and based on the culture and practices of Indigenous peoples.
This project is guided by a question: "How are Indigenous communities in Quebec responding to COVID-19 and its effects?". The overall objective of the project is to understand how the community mobilization initiatives implemented by Indigenous communities in Quebec contributed to protecting the health of the people by mitigating not only the direct effects of the coronavirus, but also the unintended negative impacts of public health measures on various social determinants of health. To do so, we are seeking to identify the community resources, whether material, intellectual, human, spiritual, spatial, political, or social, mobilized by Indigenous peoples to respond to the pandemic. Our approach focusses on the factors that promote health and well-being rather than the causes of pathologies (that is a strengths-based approach), and on Indigenous resilience, which places Indigenous people as active actors who can adapt. This is applied research, focussed on knowledge transfer, and sharing with indigenous communities.
Our main objectives are :
Document and describe community responses to the pandemic
Recognize and value community engagement
Better understand the resilience of Aboriginal communities
Mitigate collateral impacts of public health measures on other social determinants of health specific to Aboriginal communities
Approbation number of Université Laval Research Ethics Committee: 2021-091/14-06-2021