‘How can you trust a government when they haven’t been trustworthy?’: Quebec urban Indigenous informational practices in the context of a pandemic

The health informational practices of Indigenous community members living in urban areas remain understudied in Quebec (Canada), despite their importance given rapid population growth and unmet needs. These practices became even more crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many health services were disrupted. In collaboration with the Native Friendship Centre of Lanaudière, this study explores how Indigenous people living in urban settings in Quebec accessed, interpreted, and used health information during the pandemic. We conducted 24 in-person qualitative interviews between September 2021 and February 2022 and analyzed the data through a thematic content analysis, guided by the concept of trust as a relational and subjective construct. This project was not conducted under the OCAP ® (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession) principles, as it focused on individual lived experiences of urban Indigenous participants in collaboration with a community partner, without involving collective data governance mechanisms. Findings show that informational practices were diverse and multifaceted, combining multiple media sources with a preference for locally shared information through social networks and community organizations. It is important to underscore that participants’ mistrust of government sources cannot be attributed solely to the COVID-19 infodemic. While media saturation and the dissemination of contradictory messages contributed to uncertainty, this mistrust is also deeply rooted in the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, including systemic racism, intergenerational trauma, and experiences of exclusion and harm within the health system. This structural context continues to shape how information is received, interpreted, and acted upon. The study underscores the need to approach informational practices through a lens that centers Indigenous lived realities, historical memory, and self-determination.