Identifying Settler Colonial Determinants of Indigenous Health Within the United States: A Discursive Paper

Aim(s): This discursive article aims to examine how systemic factors (both) reproduce the structure of settler colonialism and influence health outcomes among Indigenous peoples in the United States through settler colonial determinants of Indigenous health (SCDoIH).

Design: Discursive paper.

Methods: This discursive paper demonstrates how settler colonialism and health relate to each other within a nursing context. The concept of settler colonialism that was consolidated into a scholarly field beginning in the late 1990s is used to identify and contextualize SCDoIH for individuals residing in the United States as an entry point to advance scholarship on settler colonialism and nursing.

Results: A research framework that identifies factors of settler colonialism and SCDoIH within the United States is presented.

Conclusion: The structure of settler colonialism in the United States includes settler colonial determinants of health for Indigenous populations that have detrimental effects on health outcomes.

Implications for nursing: To provide holistic nursing care, nurses must be aware of settler colonialism as a determinant of health. Nurses providing care to Indigenous peoples need to be attuned to the pathways and processes through which settler colonialism leads to exposures that may affect their patients' health.