Co-designing digital health support for healthy ageing among Sámi and Inuit elders

Issue/problem

Healthy ageing policies and digital health innovations often travel between urban centres and remote communities without sufficient attention to Indigenous worldviews, everyday practices and self-determination. For Sámi and Inuit elders, health is holistic, encompassing physical, mental, social, cultural and community dimensions. Culturally safe digital health approaches are needed to promote equal health across Nordic and Arctic settings.

Description of the problem

This project aims to promote healthy and sustainable ageing among Sámi and Inuit elders aged 65+ in Norway, Sweden and Greenland. Using a participatory co-design process elders, community partners and researchers collaborate through four phases: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. Sharing circles and population surveys will be used to explore perceptions and practices of healthy ageing, self-management needs and priorities for culturally relevant health support.

Results

Preliminary outputs include establishment of a Norway-Sweden-Greenland partnership, a four-phase co-design protocol and community engagement procedures for Sámi and Inuit elders. To date, two sharing circles have been conducted with Sámi elders in Sweden and three with Inuit elders in Greenland. Participants report that taking part was meaningful. Although analysis is ongoing, traditional food and food systems have emerged across all conversations as central to how elders discuss healthy ageing, wellbeing, identity and continuity.

Lessons

Digital health innovation for healthy ageing must start from community-defined priorities rather than technology alone. Early learning suggests that culturally grounded practices, including food traditions, can provide an important entry point for co-designing relevant health support. The project shows how digital health innovation should start from Indigenous elders’ own priorities, not from technology alone.

Funding

Nord-Forsk (grant no. 224738)

Key messages

• Co-designing digital health with Sámi and Inuit elders shows that healthy ageing support must start from community-defined priorities and culturally grounded practices, not technology alone.

• Sharing circles with Indigenous elders show that traditional food and food systems are central to healthy ageing, identity and continuity, guiding culturally safe digital health innovation.