Reconceptualizing Native Women’s Health: An “Indigenist” Stress-Coping Model

Document Abstract / Summary Overview

This commentary presents an “in digenist” model of Native women’s health, a stress-coping paradigm that situates Native women’s health within the larger context of their status as a colonized people. The model is grounded in empirical evidence that traumas such as the “soul wound” of historical and contemporary discrimination among Native women influence health and mental health outcomes. The preliminary model also incorporates cultural resilience, including as moderators identity, enculturation, spiritual coping, and traditional healing practices. Current epidemiological data on Native women’s general health and mental health are reconsidered within the framework of this model. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92: 520–524)