Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

Globally, the health of the indigenous people is lagging behind as compared to the mainstream population in countries in which they live. Despite improved overall prosperity and population longevity, social and health inequalities seem to persist in this underprivileged community. Failure in delivering effective health promotion toward the indigenous community is determined by a range of factors. This includes the absence of culturally sensitive awareness among the healthcare workers, ineffective communication of the healthcare providers, poor access to health service, lack of culturally specific health promotional materials, lack of involvement by indigenous healthcare workers, lack of community based programs and inefficiency of indigenous health data collection. Effective interventions for indigenous health require a trans-disciplinary and holistic approach that incorporates indigenous health beliefs and engages with the social and cultural drivers of health.Such culturally congruent health promotion strategies are hoped to narrow down the existing wide gap of health outcomes that contribute to inequalities between indigenous communities and the mainstream population.