Psychological Wellbeing in the Face of Adversity among American Indians: Preliminary Evidence of a New Population Health Paradox?

Abstract

Our objective was to determine self-reported psychological wellbeing of American Indians (AIs). Data are from two surveys, a) 218 adults from the 2011 - 2012 Mino Giizhigad study including Ojibwe adults in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and b) 146 AI women aged 15 - 35 years from the 2011 Sacred Journey study residing in the Pacific Northwest. Reports of AI mental wellness/positive mental health were on par with or higher than found in previous studies with non-AI samples despite simultaneously disparate rates of AI anxiety, depressive symptoms, and differential exposure to sociohistorical stressors. Results are a paradoxical mismatch between mental wellness and mental stressors consistent across two separate, diverse samples of AI adults.