Indigenous health data and international recommendations for national planning and data governance

Abstract

Greater progress in Indigenous health is long overdue. World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution 76.16 is a potentially groundbreaking tool for improving Indigenous health and wellbeing. It is, however, fundamentally reliant on the collection and use of data and information within national health planning systems - particularly “ethical data collections to measure needs, coverage, gaps and barriers to access to services” and covering social determinants. This paper proposes a practical approach to operationalizing WHA 76.16 that builds on processes already used, so that WHA commitments can be embedded into routine statistical production, evaluation, and decision-making. We argue that the central implementation gap is partially lack of key data systems, and crucially, the absence of formal mechanisms that translate data into action. The data requirements are neither novel nor complex, they are standard, feasible, and decades overdue. Their implementation should now be treated as an urgent priority by policy makers, statistical agencies, administrators, service providers and communities. Indigenous participation in decision-making is a core requirement in the World Health Organization's Global Plan of Action for the Health of Indigenous Peoples and in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and foundational to effective implementation of the WHA 76.16.