Campaign aims to build trust in vaccines among Indigenous
Health providers hope ‘Sharing Medicine’ approach can address mistrust issues
There’s a moment in a new COVID-19 informational video published by Women’s College Hospital when it feels as if you’ve been invited into a private family Zoom call.
Dr. Ojistoh Horn, a family doctor working in the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, and her sister, Waneek HornMiller, a former Olympian and broadcaster, are speaking with their mother, the Mohawk activist Kahentinetha Horn, about the skepticism she has toward COVID-19 vaccines.
Ojistoh and Waneek are not dismissive of their mother’s concerns, but they push back when she shares her doubts about the safety of the vaccines. Waneek tells her mother she should trust Ojistoh, who, as a doctor, has read the clinical evidence around the vaccines and took it herself.
“You supported her through all this education,” Waneek says. “You sat there and held her baby so she could become our Mohawk knowledge keeper on health and wellness. Now we are in a very serious situation and these are our warriors.”
It’s a powerful moment in the conversation, which is part of an unconventional awareness campaign aimed at tackling vaccine hesitancy among Indigenous people, who have greater levels of mistrust in the health-care system due to historical injustices and ongoing mistreatment.
The project — called Maad’ooking Mskiki, which, translated from Anishinaabemowin means “Sharing Medicine” — is a virtual resource of accessible and culturally specific information about COVID-19 vaccines for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. It was developed by the Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health at Women’s College Hospital, in partnership with the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council, Anishnawbe Health Toronto, the Indigenous Health Program at the University Health Network and Shkaabe Makwa at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
The “fireside chat” videos are intimate and unscripted conversations between Indigenous health providers and community leaders on a range of topics, from vaccine hesitancy, to how vaccines work, to the relationships between biomedicine and Indigenous traditions.
The goal of the project is to provide trustworthy educational materials so Indigenous people can make informed decisions about the COVID-19 vaccine and hear from other Indigenous people who have already been vaccinated, said Dr. Lisa Richardson, who leads Indigenous health initiatives at Women’s College Hospital and the University of Toronto.
There are questions and concerns about the vaccines within the general population, Richardson said, but the historical context and reasons for Indigenous peoples’ concerns are distinct.
Richardson cited the medical experimentation that occurred at segregated “Indian hospitals,” including the testing of tuberculosis treatments without consent, nutritional experiments conducted in residential schools and the more routine indignities suffered by Indigenous people who encounter racism in the health-care system.
Given that Indigenous people have been identified as a priority group for COVID-19 vaccination, this historical context has led some people to fear they are being treated as “lab rats” or “guinea pigs” by the government, Richardson said.
“When you start to look at the history of how the colonial government of Canada has treated our people, there is a prevailing feeling of mistrust,” said Kahontakwas Diane Longboat, Elder at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, also involved in the project. “So, when we start to talk about these kinds of programs and why we do them specifically for our people, it is because of the legacy of … mistrust of government, of education systems, of hospital systems, child-welfare systems and so on.”