IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v123y2014icp125-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moving beyond the historical quagmire of measuring infant mortality for the First Nations population in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Elias, Brenda

Abstract

Infant mortality is a metric influenced by societal, political and medical advances. The way vital events are collected and reported are not always uniform. A lack of uniformity has disadvantaged some groups in society. In Canada, a multi-jurisdictional vital statistics system has truncated our ability to produce infant mortality rates for the Indigenous population. To understand how this evolved, this paper outlines the history of infant mortality, generally and internationally, and then documents the efforts to harmonize the collection and reporting of vital statistics (births and deaths) in Canada. Following this analysis is a historical review of vital event reporting for Canada's Indigenous population. A major finding of this paper is that racism, reframing, and jurisdictional posturing has limited our ability to accurately estimate live births and infant deaths for the Indigenous population. To improve Indigenous infant mortality estimation, Canada's governments need to transcend multijurisdictional challenges and fulfill international reporting obligations to Indigenous communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Elias, Brenda, 2014. "Moving beyond the historical quagmire of measuring infant mortality for the First Nations population in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 125-132.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:123:y:2014:i:c:p:125-132
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.10.056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614007096
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.10.056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fordyce, Lauren, 2013. "Accounting for fetal death: Vital statistics and the medicalization of pregnancy in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 124-131.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elias, Brenda & Busby, Karen & Martens, Pat, 2015. "One little, too little: Counting Canada's indigenous people for improved health reporting," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 179-186.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kuchinskaya, Olga & Parker, Lisa S., 2018. "‘Recurrent losers unite’: Online forums, evidence-based activism, and pregnancy loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 74-80.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:123:y:2014:i:c:p:125-132. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.