Culture, Health and Well-Being: Yarning with the Victorian First Nations Community.

Indigenous young people around the world suffer poorer mental health outcomes than their non-Indigenous peers. Currently, how culture matters for health, what cultural practices are used in community to support health and well-being, and how culture is passed on in Aboriginal contemporary life in southeast Australia--the region most affected by settler-colonisation--is not well understood. This paper presents findings from yarns with a representative sample of 44 Indigenous participants working in the field of health and well-being that explored how culture interleaves with health and well-being. It uses grounded theory as the overarching methodology with community participation in all aspects of the project. Participants were nominated through snowball sampling and screened by a governing board of Elders. They included men and women of varied ages with half residing in urban areas and half in rural Victoria, Australia. They had declared affiliations to 31 traditional tribal groups. The yarns were held over Zoom videoconferencing between an Indigenous research assistant who was part of the community, and each participant. Each yarn was recorded, transcribed, coded and analysed by a multi-perspectival team. Culture was viewed as central to individual and communal life and passed on through relationships with people and Country itself. Community members used a wide variety of cultural practices to aid and maintain health and wellbeing in profound ways. Myriad extant obstacles to health and well-being were also described, from experiences of disconnection through to barriers for accessing services. These findings have the potential to shape future holistic care and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]