JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Indigenous youth mental health is an urgent public health issue, which needs to be addressed with innovative methods that do not take the “one-size-fits-all” approach. The key to the success of health policies and programs in Indigenous communities is bottom-up, culturally appropriate, and strengths-based prevention strategies. However, these approaches need to be embedded in replicable and contextually appropriate mechanisms such as school curricula across multiple communities to ensure exchange of Indigenous Knowledge. To engage youth in the 21st century, especially in rural and remote areas, it is imperative to leverage ubiquitous mobile tools that empower Indigenous youth and facilitate novel Two-Eyed Seeing solutions. SMART Indigenous Youth is a 5-year community trial to improve Indigenous youth mental health by embedding a culturally appropriate, digital epidemiological, and citizen science initiative into schools in rural and remote regions of Canada. This policy analysis explores the benefits of such upstream initiatives by enumerating the barriers to implementation of complex school-based population health interventions in Indigenous communities. More importantly, this article describes evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers through the integration of citizen science and community-based participatory research action using digital health interventions.