Promising practices for boating safety initiatives that target indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia, the United States of America, and Canada

Abstract

Boating-related incidents are responsible for a significant number of the drowning fatalities that occur within Indigenous communities in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and Canada. The aim of this paper was to identify promising practices for boating safety initiatives that target Indigenous peoples within these countries and evaluate past and ongoing boating safety initiatives delivered to/with Indigenous peoples within these countries to suggest the ways in which they - or programs that follow them - may be more effective. Based upon evidence from previous research, boating safety initiatives that target Indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and Canada should employ cultural adaptation strategies, strategies to increase boating safety knowledge and awareness, strategies to increase the accessibility of boating safety equipment, and capacity building strategies. Improvements can be made to past, ongoing, and future boating safety initiatives delivered to/with Indigenous peoples in the four countries studied. These strategies all show promise in improving boating safety initiatives and decreasing boating-related drowning.