Residential schools have health impact on survivors’ descendants
A look at well-being of First Nations people
OTTAWA — The impacts of residential schools on the health and well-being of First Nations people are similar, whether they attended the schools or are descended from someone who did, a new survey suggests.
The finding comes from the third regional health survey by the First Nations Information Governance Centre, a non-profit organization with a mandate from the Assembly of First Nations.
The first volume made public looks at physical and mental health, employment and income, housing and residential school experiences.
On the latter it found the number of former residential school students still living is dwindling, but the impacts of the schools continue for the students’ children and grandchildren.
Jonathan Dewar, executive director of the centre, said this is in keeping with similar research over the past 15 years.
“Our studies indicate the impact of intergenerational survivors of residential schools were similar, sometimes identical to residential school survivors,” he said.
About 15 per cent of adults who live on a reserve in Canada said they attended a residential school. That number was 20 per cent in the first two surveys released in 2003 and 2010. More than four in 10 adults who attended a residential school say they were sexually abused and seven in 10 say they were physically and verbally abused.
About one-tenth reported the schools had a positive impact while about one-quarter said it had no impact, good or bad.
The survey found former students or their children were less likely to say they were in good or excellent health compared with those who were not touched by the schools.
Residential school survivors and those whose parents or grandparents attended were more likely to have considered suicide and had higher rates of binge drinking and drug use, including marijuana and opioids.
Dewar says the survey does show some bright spots of improvement for the health and social well-being of people living on reserves, though he cautions there needs to be more research done to explain why.
In many cases where indicators improved, First Nations still show significant differences from the general population in areas such as income and education, he noted.
Adults who haven’t finished high school fell to 35 per cent from 40 per cent between 2010 and 2017. Youth smoking rates were cut in half, with one in 10 teenagers smoking regularly compared to one in five seven years earlier. The prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome was reduced among children living on reserves and the number of mothers who reported smoking during pregnancy fell to about one-third from nearly half.
Almost 75 per cent of youth said they abstained from alcohol, up from 61 per cent.
On the flip side, some indicators got worse. About 24 per cent of adults were living in a house considered to be overcrowded, up from 17 per cent in 2002.