With few exceptions, Indigenous peoples around the world continue to experience significantly poorer health outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Although the magnitude of Indigenous/non-Indigenous health disparities varies significantly across time and place, there is a general consensus that Indigenous people suffer higher suicide rates, higher mortality for infants, children and mothers and carry a heavier infectious disease burden (Gracey and King 2009). Building on the seminal work of Kunitz (1994) researchers over the last decade have made a concerted effort to identify the scale and nature of Indigenous health inequities and suggest steps for action. In 2006 The Lancet commissioned a pioneering series of articles on Indigenous health in different continents including Africa and South America (Anderson et al. 2006; Montenegro and Stephens 2006; Ohenjo et al. 2006; Stephens et al. 2006). Until then most of the Indigenous health research had focused on the situation of peoples in the wealthy developed settler states of Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia (the so-called CANZUS group; Meyer 2012). In their paper,‘Disappearing, displaced, and undervalued: a call to action for Indigenous health worldwide’, Stephens et al.