Urgent action needed on Indigenous infant health: new study

As a move to keep babies healthy in Nunavut, the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health distribute these baby boxes, filled with useful items, to the moms of newborn infant. Here Emily Shoapik of Pangnirtung places her two-week-old newborn, Rachel Shoapik in October 2016, as Health Minister George Hickes and Tara MacAskill of Nunavut’s health department look on. (FILE PHOTO)

A team of medical researchers says there is “an urgent need for interventions” to reduce the inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous infant health in Canada.

That’s after their study, published May 29 in in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found First Nations and Inuit babies were hospitalized about two times more often in the first year of life compared with non-Indigenous babies—and many of the Indigenous babies ended up in hospital due to preventable illnesses.

Some of these diseases may be related to infant immunization and the quality of the living environment, so would be “largely preventable,” said the researchers, whose study included 19,770 First Nations babies, 3,930 Inuit babies and 225,380 non-Indigenous infants born in Quebec between 1996 and 2010.

The researchers suggest a need to improve infant immunization programs, promote breastfeeding and no smoking in homes, and improve living conditions in Indigenous communities.

Respiratory diseases and infections were the most common causes of hospitalization, they found.

Comparing First Nations and Inuit versus non-Indigenous infants, there were 70 to 80 more hospitalizations for every 1,000 infants for respiratory problems and 30 to 40 more hospitalizations per 1,000 infants for infections.

The researchers also said the higher hospitalization rate among First Nations and Inuit babies could be linked to “inadequate medical care of less severe diseases,” such as delays in diagnosis or treatment, which means relatively less severe illnesses progressing to more severe and then requiring hospitalization.

They said their findings identify “substantial unmet needs in disease prevention and medical care” for Indigenous babies.

There’s a big cost to inaction, raised last year in the Nunavut legislature by Iqaluit-Niaqunnguu Pat Angnakak. She wanted to know why Nunavut is not already immunizing all newborn infants against RSV, short for “respiratory syncytial virus,” which can cause a serious infection, called bronchiolitis, in the lower part of the lung.

The Government of Nunavut has spent millions of dollars on medevacs and hospital charges for seriously infected infants sent south for live-saving treatment which can cost as much as $57,535 per infected child.

Dr. Anna Banerji of the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, who has studied the impact of RSV in Nunavut and Nunavik, has long advocated for the use of an immunization agent called Palivizumab, also known as Synagis.

Despite its high cost, about $6,000 per child, Banerji has produced research that suggests immunizing every baby in Nunavut would lead to net cost savings—because of reduced medevac and hospital charges.

But iNunavut’s health department does not immunize all infants—only those deemed to be at the highest risk.