Indigenous Perspectives on Strengths, Resilience, and Well-being

Indigenous communities consistently call for strengths-based, assets-driven approaches to promoting health equity. This includes efforts to expand well-being and resilience frameworks to reflect cultural understandings and perspectives. This study describes community-based participatory research (CBPR) involving focus groups with four diverse groups of Indigenous community members in a single reservation community in the United States. Data were analyzed using inductive and deductive multi-coder processes. Our collaborative efforts led to innovations in planned methods and focal areas of study, including a reframing of “resilience” as one that brings hearts and community together. This approach also yielded a unique, intensive qualitative coding structure that represents a substantive effort to democratize and Indigenize research methods. Community members who participated in focus groups identified Indigenous cultural practices, beliefs, and community as critical components to well-being.