Jamie Donatuto

Conducting Research with Tribal Communities: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Data-Sharing Issues

Background: When conducting research with American Indian tribes, informed consent beyond conventional institutional review board (IRB) review is needed because of the potential for adverse consequences at a community or governmental level that are unrecognized by academic researchers. Objectives: In this article, we review sovereignty, research ethics, and data-sharing considerations when doing community-based participatory health–related or natural-resource–related research with American Indian nations and present a model material and data-sharing agreement that meets tribal and university requirements. Discussion: Only tribal nations themselves can identify potential adverse outcomes, and they can do this only if they understand the assumptions and methods of the proposed research. Tribes must be truly equal partners in study design, data collection, interpretation, and publication. Advances in protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) are also applicable to IRB reviews, as are principles of sovereignty and indigenous rights, all of which affect data ownership and control. Conclusions: Academic researchers engaged in tribal projects should become familiar with all three areas: sovereignty, ethics and informed consent, and IPR. We recommend developing an agreement with tribal partners that reflects both health-related IRB and natural-resource–related IPR considerations.

Engage key social concepts for sustainability

Social indicators, both mature and emerging, are underused With humans altering climate processes, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem functions (1), governments and societies confront the challenge of shaping a sustainable future for people and nature. Policies and practices to address these challenges must draw on social sciences, along with natural sciences and engineering (2). Although various social science approaches can enable and assess progress toward sustainability, debate about such concrete engagement is outpacing actual use. To catalyze uptake, we identify seven key social concepts that are largely absent from many efforts to pursue sustainability goals. We present existing and emerging well-tested indicators and propose priority areas for conceptual and methodological development.

Issues in evaluating fish consumption rates for Native American tribes.

The environmental health goals of many Native American tribes are to restore natural resources and ensure that they are safe to harvest and consume in traditional subsistence quantities. Therefore, it is important to tribes to accurately estimate risks incurred through the consumption of subsistence foods. This article explores problems in conventional fish consumption survey methods used in widely cited tribal fish consumption reports. The problems arise because of the following: (1) widely cited reports do not clearly state what they intend to do with the data supporting these reports, (2) data collection methods are incongruent with community norms and protocols, (3) data analysis methods omit or obscure the highest consumer subset of the population, (4) lack of understanding or recognition of tribal health co-risk factors, and (5) restrictive policies that do not allow inclusion of tribal values within state or federal actions. In particular, the data collection and analysis methods in current tribal fish consumption surveys result in the misunderstanding that tribal members are satisfied with eating lower contemporary amounts of fish and shellfish, rather than the subsistence amounts that their cultural heritage and aboriginal rights indicate. A community-based interview method developed in collaboration with and used by the Swinomish Tribe is suggested as a way to gather more accurate information on contemporary consumption rates. For traditional subsistence rates, a multidisciplinary reconstruction method is recommended.

Poisoning the body to nourish the soul: Prioritising health risks and impacts in a Native American community

Current United States government risk assessment and management regulations fail to consider Native American definitions of health or risk. On the invitation of the Coast Salish Swinomish Indian Tribal Community of Washington State, this study examines local meanings of health in reference to seafood where contamination of their aquatic natural resources has been found. By conducting two series of interviews with Swinomish seafood consumers, experts and elders, the study allowed interviewees to provide a more complete picture of the implications of seafood contamination alongside consumption habits within the community. Study results demonstrate that seafood represents a symbolic, deeply meaningful food source that is linked to a multi-dimensional ‘Swinomish’ concept of health. A health evaluation tool using descriptive scaled rankings was devised to clarify non-physiological health risks and impacts in relation to contaminated seafood. Findings demonstrate that food security, ceremonial use, knowledge transmission, and community cohesion all play primary roles in Swinomish definitions of individual and community health and complement physical indicators of health. Thus, to eat less seafood (as prescribed on the basis of current physiological measures) may actually be detrimental to the Swinomish concept of health.

Framing scientific analyses for risk management of environmental hazards by communities: case studies with seafood safety issues.

Risk management provides a context for addressing environmental health hazards. Critical to this approach is the identification of key opportunities for participation. We applied a framework based on the National Research Council’s (NRC) analytic–deliberative risk management dialogue model that illustrates two main iterative processes: informing and framing. The informing process involves conveying information from analyses of risk issues, often scientific, to all parties so they can participate in deliberation. In the framing process, ideas and concerns from stakeholder deliberations help determine what and how scientific analyses will be carried out. There are few activities through which affected parties can convey their ideas from deliberative processes for framing scientific analyses. The absence of participation results in one-way communication. The analytic–deliberative dialogue, as envisioned by the NRC and promoted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), underscores the importance of two-way communication. In this article we present case studies of three groups—an Asian and Pacific Islander community coalition and two Native American Tribes—active in framing scientific analyses of health risks related to contaminated seafood. Contacts with these organizations were established or enhanced through a regional NIEHS town meeting. The reasons for concern, participation, approaches, and funding sources were different for each group. Benefits from their activities include increased community involvement and ownership, better focusing of analytical processes, and improved accuracy and appropriateness of risk management. These examples present a spectrum of options for increasing community involvement in framing analyses and highlight the need for increased support of such activities.

Developing Responsive Indicators of Indigenous Community Health.

How health is defined and assessed is a priority concern for Indigenous peoples due to considerable health risks faced from environmental impacts to homelands, and because what is “at risk” is often determined without their input or approval. Many health assessments by government agencies, industry, and researchers from outside the communities fail to include Indigenous definitions of health and omit basic methodological guidance on how to evaluate Indigenous health, thus compromising the quality and consistency of results. Native Coast Salish communities (Washington State, USA) developed and pilot-tested a set of Indigenous Health Indicators (IHI) that reflect non-physiological aspects of health (community connection, natural resources security, cultural use, education, self-determination, resilience) on a community scale, using constructed measures that allow for concerns and priorities to be clearly articulated without releasing proprietary knowledge. Based on initial results from pilot-tests of the IHI with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (Washington State, USA), we argue that incorporation of IHIs into health assessments will provide a more comprehensive understanding of Indigenous health concerns, and assist Indigenous peoples to control their own health evaluations.

“Sense of Place”: Human Wellbeing Considerations for Ecological Restoration in Puget Sound

ABSTRACT Sense of place is increasingly recognized as key to human wellbeing in social-ecological systems. Yet there is limited understanding about how to define and evaluate it for restoration. Here, we examine the connections between sense of place and human wellbeing for Puget Sound in the context of ecological restoration for shellfish harvesting and other shoreline activities. Using a mixed-methods approach, including semi-structured interviews and participatory workshops with tribal and non-tribal residents, we examined sense of place in two regions of Puget Sound. Empirical results show that peoples senses of place are multi-dimensional and derived from: (1) activities in the near-shore; (2) cultural practices and familial heritage; (3) sensory and emotional experiences; and (4) the maintenance and strengthening of social connections. We also found that three conditions play important roles in enabling and fostering place attachment: access, knowledge, and ecological integrity. Improved understanding of a practice-based sense of place is key to creating and enacting successful, resident-supported restoration activities.

Evaluating indicators of human well-being for ecosystem-based management

ABSTRACT Introduction: Interrelated social and ecological challenges demand an understanding of how environmental change and management decisions affect human well-being. This paper outlines a framework for measuring human well-being for ecosystem-based management (EBM). We present a prototype that can be adapted and developed for various scales and contexts. Scientists and managers use indicators to assess status and trends in integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs). To improve the social science rigor and success of EBM, we developed a systematic and transparent approach for evaluating indicators of human well-being for an IEA. Methods: Our process is based on a comprehensive conceptualization of human well-being, a scalable analysis of management priorities, and a set of indicator screening criteria tailored to the needs of EBM. We tested our approach by evaluating more than 2000 existing social indicators related to ocean and coastal management of the US West Coast. We focused on two foundational attributes of human well-being: resource access and self-determination. Outcomes and Discussion: Our results suggest that existing indicators and data are limited in their ability to reflect linkages between environmental change and human well-being, and extremely limited in their ability to assess social equity and justice. We reveal a critical need for new social indicators tailored to answer environmental questions and new data that are disaggregated by social variables to measure equity. In both, we stress the importance of collaborating with the people whose well-being is to be assessed. Conclusion: Our framework is designed to encourage governments and communities to carefully assess the complex tradeoffs inherent in environmental decision-making.