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Placing Individual Health in Context

Report of the 2008/10 RHS Community Survey

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Statistical Highlights

  • 94.1% of communities had a housing waitlist; 22.1% had average wait times of 10+ years

  • 57.3% of communities experienced a boil-water advisory in the past 5 years

  • 90.7% of communities held cultural events such as powwows, feasts, or potlatches

Notable Findings

  • Less than half (43.8%) of communities had a grocery store; 22.3% had no fresh food source within 20km

  • Nearly one-third of homes lacked electricity or plumbing; 50.9% of adults lived in homes with mould

  • The survey created the groundwork for linking community-level factors with individual-level health outcomes for the first time

Abstract

This report presented results from the 2008/10 First Nations Regional Health Survey’s Community Survey, capturing community-level indicators across 236 First Nations communities in Canada. The data addressed environmental hazards, infrastructure, food security, education, policing, cultural vitality, and governance. Respondents from within each community completed the survey based on their area of expertise, covering ten major themes.

While regional response rates varied, the final dataset captured significant variation in the structural and cultural conditions impacting community health. The report emphasized that future research would pair these community-level insights with individual data from the 2008/10 RHS to reveal deeper relationships between place and wellness. This was the first nationally coordinated attempt to contextualize individual health data using community-determined indicators.

RELEASE DATE:

July 2015 (Revised Edition)

CONDUCTED BY:

First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC), with participation from RHS Regional Coordinators across all regions

DATA COLLECTION PERIOD:

2008–2010

PARTICIPATING COMMUNITIES:

236 First Nations communities across all regions in Canada, including overrepresentation in some areas and low participation in others. Responses came from knowledgeable individuals across different departments within each community.

LENGTH & STRUCTURE:

36 pages. Organized into thematic chapters: external environment, housing, food and nutrition, employment and economy, education, safety and policing, health and social services, cultural identity, and governance. Each section includes statistical summaries and cross-references to individual-level data from RHS 2008/10.

Why It Matters

This report signaled a major evolution in Indigenous health research: the capacity to understand not just what individuals face, but how their communities shape those realities. It documented, for instance, that over 90% of communities had housing waitlists and that wait times of 10 years or more were not uncommon.

More than half of communities reported boil-water advisories and one-third faced environmental hazards like floods or fires. At the same time, strong cultural infrastructure persisted—90.7% of communities held ceremonies or feasts, and over two-thirds offered language instruction in schools. Yet only 43.8% of communities had grocery stores, and food access remained deeply unequal.

Importantly, this survey laid the foundation for connecting this structural data to individual outcomes (like diabetes, mental health, and suicide prevention), allowing First Nations to map how community decisions and conditions affect wellness. For Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous communities, it offered a clear argument: community is not a backdrop to health—it’s a driver.

Key Topics

  • Infrastructure, environmental risks, and access to basic services

  • Language, cultural identity, and self-governance

  • Community-led health, education, and social programs