Indigenous Wellness Indicators: Including Urban Indigenous Wellness Indicators in the Healthy City Strategy

Indigenous concepts of wellness are distinct from western notions of wellness, and are unique to each Indigenous community’s respective worldview. As such, there is a growing recognition of the need for indicators that reflect Indigenous notions of wellness. With the City of Vancouver preparing its second Healthy City Strategy Action Plan, now is an opportune moment for the City to collaborate with the urban Indigenous community to develop culturally relevant, strengths-based Indigenous wellness indicators. Vancouver’s Healthy City Strategy is a “long-term, integrated plan for healthier people, healthier places, and a healthier planet” (City of Vancouver, 2018b). It contains thirteen goals, each with associated targets and measures, based on the social indicators of health. The way it is currently tracked does not adequately reflect the urban Indigenous community (with insufficient and mostly deficit-based indicators specific to Indigenous peoples), which limits the Strategy’s scope, scale, and impact on the urban Indigenous community and the rest of Vancouver.