Abstract

Past influenza pandemics including the Spanish flu and H1N1 have disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples. We conducted a systematic scoping review to provide an overview of the state of understanding of the experience of Indigenous peoples during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in doing so we capture the state of knowledge available to governments and decision makers for addressing the needs of Indigenous peoples in these early months of the pandemic. We addressed three questions: (i) How is COVID-19 impacting the health and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples, (ii) What systems level challenges are Indigenous peoples experiencing, (iii) How are Indigenous peoples responding? We searched Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed databases and UN organization websites for publications about Indigenous peoples and COVID-19. Results were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis.