In support of call for improvement in Aboriginal child health.

Smylie et al.1 have done a signal service to Canada’s Aboriginal peoples and to health care professionals who care for their children or may be called upon to do so. Accurate information is essential to health care planning and management, and the authors clearly demonstrate the need for improvement in this regard. Their recommendations are constructive and need to be heeded by public authorities. The differences in neonatal and particularly postneonatal mortality rates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians must be causes of concern and of action. The Canadian Institute of Child Health has a long history of preoccupation with Aboriginal child health and is very much on the authors’ wavelength. The Prime Minister recently stated that maternal and child health were to have priority in Canada’s foreign aid policy. The CICH immediately sought to point out that the same needs to be true of domestic policy, and that Aboriginal maternal and child health require particular preoccupation and action. Smylie et al. have also underlined the indispensable value of accurate census information. Some twenty-five years ago, Toronto pharmacist and philanthropist Murray Koffler brought together a group of conscientious people and created the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, in which Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals work together to achieve diversification of Aboriginal economies, of marketing strategies for their products and services, and of educational and training opportunities for their youth. The CICH urges that people of goodwill come together and create a comparable initiative in the health care field.