Education and the health of the First Nations people of Canada

The social determinants of health are those social and economic conditions in which people live that affect their health. As a social determinant, education has been shown to be a very robust predictor of health outcomes. In the global and public health literature, “education” is often used as a global construct with the implicit assumption that all forms of education are beneficial. However, this acontextual approach has serious limitations with respect to the First Nations people of Canada, where there has been a destructive legacy of colonialism and forced assimilation in the form of residential schooling. In this review paper, we examine the complexities of the relationship of education and health of the First Nations people. We advocate a more critical and nuanced approach that includes considerations of history, hegemony, and socio-cultural context as being crucial for appropriate First Nations education and health policies.