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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Native American
• risk
• risk assessment
• seafood
• contamination
• mental models
• community health
• cultural health

Acknowledgments

The work presented in this paper was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#17R27953), the University of British Columbia Hampton Fund (#17R78182), the US Environmental Protection Agency STAR grant to the Swinomish Tribe (#R-82946701), the US National Science Foundation Decision, Risk and Management Science program (#0725025) to Decision Research, and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. The authors wish to thank the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community leaders, staff and citizens for their participation, support, and encouragement throughout the project. The authors also wish to thank the two anonymous referees for detailed and wise advice. Responsibility for the ideas expressed in this paper rest with the authors alone.

Notes

1. Nationally the poverty rate for US population is 12.3 percent (DeNavas-Walt et al. 2007), while the Native American poverty rate is 26.6 percent (Webster and Bishaw 2007).

2. As a food source and tool to hold fire (in the shell), shellfish sustain a lonely young boy so that he grows into the man who helps create the modern world (Onat 1993).

3. Lifetime non-cancer risks for adults and children are above what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems an acceptable level of risk; a hazard quotient of 1 (the Swinomish hazard quotients range from 3 to 20). The lifetime cancer risks are in the range of 1 in a 1000; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency usually sets the acceptable risk baseline at 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000.

4. Community members and tribal staff, selected for their knowledge of the community and their acceptance in it, conducted the interviews. Training in basic ethnographic interview methods was provided for the interviewers.

5. In order for the US federal government to enact policy that affects Treaty status Native Americans groups, government-to-government consultations must occur with the Native American group(s) potentially affected as outlined in the 2001 Executive Order #13175 and The National Congress of American Indians 2006 Resolution #SAC-06-026.

6. Where applicable, statistical data from the first set of interviews are presented here as an additional data source. Although 76 adults participated in the first set of interviews, not all interviewees answered all of the questions; therefore, the number of interviewees reflected in each of the statistics varies depending on how many answered the question.