Traditional Indigenous medicine in North America: A scoping review

Nicole Redvers · Be’sha Blondin

134 citations0/0 files storedPLoS ONE

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights Indigenous Cultures and History Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Despite the documented continued use of traditional healing methods, modalities and its associated practitioners by Indigenous groups across North America, it is presumed that widespread knowledge is elusive amongst most Western trained health professionals and systems. This despite that the approximately 7.5 million Indigenous peoples who currently reside in Canada and the United States (US) are most often served by Western systems of medicine. A state of the literature is currently needed in this area to provide an accessible resource tool for medical practitioners, scholars, and communities to better understand Indigenous traditional medicine in the context of current clinical care delivery and future policy making. METHODS: A systematic search of multiple databases was performed utilizing an established scoping review framework. A consequent title and abstract review of articles published on traditional Indigenous medicine in the North American context was completed. FINDINGS: Of the 4,277 published studies identified, 249 met the inclusion criteria divided into the following five categorical themes: General traditional medicine, integration of traditional and Western medicine systems, ceremonial practice for healing, usage of traditional medicine, and traditional healer perspectives. CONCLUSIONS: This scoping review was an attempt to catalogue the wide array of published research in the peer-reviewed and online grey literature on traditional Indigenous medicine in North America in order to provide an accessible database for medical practitioners, scholars, and communities to better inform practice, policymaking, and research in Indigenous communities.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 134 citations exist upstream.

References

2005Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework 2010Scoping studies: advancing the methodology 2014A scoping review of scoping reviews: advancing the approach and enhancing the consistency 2009Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts 2013Enhancing the scoping study methodology: a large, inter-professional team’s experience with Arksey and O’Malley’s framework 2007United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2009Practical Application of an Indigenous Research Framework and Two Qualitative Indigenous Research Methods: Sharing Circles and Anishnaabe Symbol-Based Reflection 2014Cultural interventions to treat addictions in Indigenous populations: findings from a scoping study

Cited by

2022A Systematic Review of Trauma and Substance Use in American Indian and Alaska Native Individuals: Incorporating Cultural Considerations 2025Barriers and unmet needs related to healthcare for American Indian and Alaska Native communities: improving access to specialty care and clinical trials 2023The role of sovereignty in Indigenous community‐based health interventions: A qualitative metasynthesis 2023Enhancement of scoping review methodology to reflect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.