Cree youth engagement in health planning

Indigenous communities experience a greater burden of ill health than all other communities in Canada. Across the Eeyou Istchee territory of northern Quebec, all nine James Bay Cree communities experience similar health challenges. In 2014, the Cree Health Board (CHB) supported an initiative to stimulate local community prioritization for health change. While many challenges identified were specific to youth (10-29 years of age), youth’s perspectives in these reports to date have been limited. We sought to understand how Cree youth perceived youth health and their engagement in health and health planning across Eeyou Istchee. As part of a CHB-McGill partnership, this qualitative descriptive study adopted a community-based participatory research approach. Cree community partners recruited ten Cree youth to participate in two focus groups, and five Cree youth coordinators to participate in key informant interviews. Thematic analysis was conducted and inductive codes were grouped into themes. Cree participants characterized youth engagement into the following levels: participation in community and recreational activities; membership in youth councils at the local and regional levels; and, in decision-making as planners of health-related initiatives. Cree youth recommended greater use of social media, youth assemblies, and youth planners to strengthen their engagement and youth health in the region. Our findings revealed an interconnectedness between youth health and youth engagement; Cree youth described how they need to be engaged to be healthy and need to be healthy to be engaged. Cree participants contributed novel and practical insights to engage Indigenous youth in health planning across Canada.