Mamow Ahyamowen’s Partnership Level Mortality Report is Now Available
November 2019
The Mamow Ahyamowen Steering Committee is pleased to be able to share the overall report from our partnership’s first analysis together. This report contains some of the most universally recognized indicators of the health status. This is the first time that many participating communities have ever had access to their data on mortality and the chronic conditions present at the time of death. This report titled Learning from Our Ancestors: Mortality Experience of First Nations in Northern Ontario summarizes the experiences of the 59 communities that chose to participate in this analysis.
In addition to this partnership level report Mamow Ahyamowen is producing partner level reports as well as community level reports. Maamwesying and SLFNHA have already shared their partner level reports on their websites. This partnership level report allows us to share the mortality data disaggregated by sex, age, and time. We were unable to do these more detailed analyses at the community level due to limited population sizes.
In addition to this partnership level report Mamow Ahyamowen is producing partner level reports as well as community level reports. Two partners have already shared their reports on their websites (see the Maamwesying and SLFNHA reports). This partnership level report allows us to share the mortality data disaggregated by sex, age, and time. We were unable to do these more detailed analyses at the community level due to limited population sizes. We encourage anybody reading the partnership level report to use caution interpreting the aggregated results. As Michael Chandler has written “Adding apples and oranges would be a mere misdemeanour compared with the indictable offense of wrongly supposing that the distinctive bands that comprise the province’s historically diverse First nations communities all deserve to be seen as adding up to the same single, seamless, homogenized arithmetic whole.”[1] Indeed the health experiences of individual communities that participated in this work varies quite dramatically. As a result we encourage partners to engage directly with communities and make program planning decisions based on community level knowledge, data, and experiences.
As we have been sharing the community level reports with the participating communities we are consistently being told that the quantitative data we are providing is not surprising. Communities tell us the quantitative data supports and strengthens the messages they have been trying to communicate based on their own lived experience, stories, and qualitative data. The combination of the rich community knowledge and health experiences with this quantitative data creates a unique opportunity to plan effective programs. As you read the reports please feel free to provide us with your feedback so we can continue to build the partnership and make sure that our work meets the needs of the communities we serve.
[1] Michael Chandler, 2011.The “Mental” Health of Canada’s Indigenous Children and Youth available at: https://www.longwoods.com/content/22363/healthcare-quarterly/the-mental-health-of-canada-s-indigenous-children-and-youth-finding-new-ways-forward