Indigenous Health and Connection to Country

Abstract

Abstract There are an estimated 370 million Indigenous peoples living in more than 70 countries. Indigenous populations are defined as the First Peoples occupying countries or regions at times of colonization, with distinct cultural, religious, and social practices that distinguish them from other populations. Indigenous peoples across the globe have deep, intimate, holistic, localized, and reciprocal relationships and connections to their “Country” (as it is known in Australia), which includes elements of the land, sea, waterways, sky, stars, and living and nonliving entities. This relationship is largely unacknowledged through Western biomedical models of health, which te..