Examining theoretical lenses and methodological approaches to health research on/by/with Indigenous women in North America: A methodology for conducting a scoping review of the field

Abstract Background: Indigenous women in North America experience multiple inequities in terms of health and well-being when compared to non-Indigenous women and Indigenous men. In an effort to understand these health disparities, there has been a surge of research in the field of Indigenous women’s health and well-being in the last 20 years. However, increasing research efforts will not necessarily benefit Indigenous women if that research is deficit-based and steeped in theoretical frameworks that perpetuate patriarchal colonial understandings of Indigenous women’s ill-health. We propose to create a theoretical framework tool to guide researchers in the field to conduct reciprocal, respectful, and regenerative research. Our first step in this project was to conduct a scoping review of the most current research in the field to determine which theoretical frameworks are being used, in which disciplines, and on which topics. This paper outlines the methodology of our scoping review. Methods: This scoping review follows an iterative six step process as laid out by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). We also followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews (the PRISMA-ScR) as updated by Peters et al. (2020). Peer-reviewed, academic articles from the following databases were identified: Academic Search Complete, Native Health Database, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Bibliography of Native North America, Sociological Abstracts, Gender Watch, and Indigenous Peoples of North America. Two team members subsequently conducted two screens of titles and abstracts to include articles which focused exclusively on Indigenous women’s health and well- being, were published between 2011 and 2021, and explicitly stated their use of critical theory (i.e. Indigenous feminist, intersectionality, Indigenous resurgence, feminist, etc.) or community-based participatory research.Discussion: The results of our scoping review will map out the current field of Indigenous women’s health research. We will do this by identifying, categorizing, and analyzing research conducted from CBPR and critical theoretical lenses over the past decade. Our aim for the analysis will be to demonstrate the disciplines engaged in Indigenous women’s health and the ways in which theoretical lenses shape the research questions, methodologies, analysis, and implications of the research.

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