“American Indian” as a Racial Category in Public Health

When public health considers the health and disease status of Indigenous people, it often does so using a racial lens. In recent decades, public health researchers have begun to acknowledge that commonly employed racial categories represent history, power dynamics, embodiment, and legacies of discrimination and racism, rather than innate biology. Even so, public health has not yet fully embraced an understanding of other components of identity formation for Indigenous people, including political status within Native nations. The American Public Health Association’s Journal discusses why the continued racial conceptualization of Indigeneity in U.S. public health is inadequate.