Community Research & Insights

In partnership with Indigenous researchers and institutions, Urban Indigenous Collective supported the dissemination and community-based recruitment for this national study examining stress, resilience, and coping among American Indian and Alaska Native communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What the research found:

• Higher stress and depression: Indigenous participants experienced greater levels of stress and depressive symptoms during COVID-19 compared to non-Native populations. 
• Multiple layers of impact: Many were navigating grief, financial strain, health concerns, and disconnection from community and culture—all at once. 
• Resilience under pressure: While our communities carry deep resilience, the study showed that this resilience was strained during the pandemic. 
• Coping strategies: People leaned on problem-solving, emotional regulation, and at times withdrawal or avoidance to move through an ongoing crisis. 
• Systemic roots: These challenges are not individual—they reflect long-standing inequities that were intensified during COVID-19.

This brief emerges from a guided Indigenous-only dialogue held at the Psychedelic Science Conference (PS25) in Denver, where participants gathered in the Right Relations Indigi-Lounge to speak openly about the current state of the psychedelic movement. 

Urban Indigenous Collective stewarded this space to ensure Indigenous voices, perspectives, and lived experiences were centered, not extracted capturing both the depth of conversation and collective visions for the future. 

What this brief reveals:

• A unified call for change: Indigenous participants called for a shift away from extractive, commodified, and colonial systems toward a future rooted in sovereignty, relational accountability, and collective healing.  
• Healing is relational, not individual: Healing was defined as a return to self, community, land, and spirit—not just a clinical outcome, but a lifelong and collective process.  
• The system is misaligned: The current psychedelic ecosystem often prioritizes profit, individualism, and “the medicine” itself—while ignoring community, ceremony, and Indigenous sovereignty.  
• Indigenous leadership must be centered: Participants called for Indigenous governance across research, policy, and practice—including data sovereignty, land return, and decision-making power.  
• Plant medicines are sacred, not products: The brief emphasizes that these medicines are living relatives with agency, requiring respect, relationship, and ceremony—not commodification or reduction.  
• The future is already known: Rather than creating something new, participants emphasized a return to Indigenous knowledge systems—centering ceremony, intergenerational leadership, and land-based practices.