Measuring health and well-being from preconception to early life in Indigenous populations: a scoping review protocol.

backgroundIndigenous Peoples face a notable absence of standardized equity indicators for non-communicable diseases. Existing measurement models are rooted in Euro-Western biomedical frameworks that overlook Indigenous worldviews, definitions of health, and relational approaches to wellness. These models remain narrow in scope-focused on disease-specific indicators and treatment pathways-and reinforce deficit-oriented perspectives rather than advancing holistic, strengths-based understandings of well-being. This scoping review aims to identify and synthesize research that utilizes, assesses, or validates measures of wellness, health, and supportive early environments in Indigenous populations.

methodsThis review will use an Indigenous-informed scoping review study methodology, which grounds each stage of the review process in Indigenous values and community guidance. A systematic search of global academic and grey literature databases will be conducted to identify relevant literature. Selected studies will include those that assess or validate the measurement of health and wellness spanning from preconception through pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood within Indigenous populations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. Articles will be screened and assessed for eligibility by two reviewers. From eligible articles, data including author and year of publication; source country; target population; objectives; name(s) of instrument(s); type(s) of measure(s); development/adaptation/validation process; main outcomes; community engagement; quality assessment; and other descriptive variables will be extracted. A thematic analysis approach guided by an Indigenous Community Advisory Committee will be applied to synthesize the findings. DISCUSSION: This scoping review aims to identify and synthesize the global literature on tools and instruments to measure health, well-being, and supportive early environments in Indigenous populations. This work aims to inform the development of Indigenous wellness indicators for the Indigenous Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (I-HeLTI) Cohort Research Study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Traditional population health monitoring methods, rooted in Western paradigms, have often perpetuated colonial biases and overlook unique contexts of Indigenous communities. This review seeks to bridge knowledge gaps in developing and validating Indigenous wellness indicators that align with Indigenous values and aspirations. The findings are expected to advance ethical approaches to health measurement in Indigenous populations, supporting data sovereignty and culturally inclusive wellness indicators. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework https://osf.io/yfv8m .