Assessing Cumulative Environmental Impacts on Native American and Alaska Native Community Health Outcomes through a Decolonizing Transdisciplinary Perspective
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Background/Aims: Native American tribes and Alaska Native Villages (NAT/ANV) have been and continue to be disproportionately burdened by cumulative environmental injustices. In recent years, scholars have highlighted the need to examine cumulative environmental factors on health outcomes for Indigenous communities, including NAT/ANV. Their work also exemplifies the benefit of pursuing such research through community-engaged participatory research approaches inclusive of decolonizing and transdisciplinary methodologies.
Methods: A transdisciplinary research methodology provides a framework for integrating multiple disciplines and community knowledge. When working with NAT/ANV communities, it is important to follow decolonizing methodologies, which highlight and integrate Indigenous ways of knowing throughout the research process. Blending these methodologies produces a holistic research perspective to assess cumulative environmental stressors through the integration of multiple disciplines and knowledge systems. This perspective is best implemented through a community-engaged lens inclusive of the following approaches: Indigenous research methodology, Two-Eyed Seeing, and Bi-directional learning to promote knowledge co-production (Figure 1). The fundamental tenets of Indigenous research methodology (relationship, respect, relevance, responsibility, reciprocity) provides guidance for ethical collaboration with Indigenous communities. Two-Eyed Seeing is an approach for blending Western and Indigenous knowledge systems and Bi-directional learning promotes such integration through teaching and learning from all partners involved.
Results: A decolonizing transdisciplinary perspective informed a community-engaged study design to examine cumulative environmental impacts on NAT/ANV health outcomes (e.g., determined by community). The study design will be piloted collaboratively between U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and willing NAT/ANV communities. The collaborative team will implement this study design through the guiding principles of Indigenous research methodology, Two-Eyed Seeing, and Bi-directional learning.
Conclusion: Grounding this community-engaged study design in a decolonizing transdisciplinary perspective is intended to strengthen EPA and NAT/ANV relationality and opportunities for knowledge co-production. These efforts aim to improve NAT/ANV community decision making on interventions protective of health, cultural practices, and welfare.