Indigenous and tribal communities continue to experience avoidable health and social inequities shaped by colonial histories, marginalisation and cultural displacement. This study aims to examine how social marketing has engaged with these realities and how its tools, principles and values can support Indigenous well-being. Drawing on global evidence, the study seeks to identify the core themes, gaps and culturally grounded strategies used in prior research. As an Indigenous scholar from Rajasthan’s tribal region, I also seek to highlight how lived experiences deepen understanding of what culturally respectful and community-led health promotion means for Indigenous peoples.
A systematic review was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science to identify peer-reviewed English-language studies linking Indigenous peoples and social marketing [TITLE-ABS-KEY (“Indigenous People” OR “Tribal”) AND “Social Marketing”]. Thirty studies met the inclusion criteria after applying rigorous screening procedures. Keyword co-occurrence mapping using VOSviewer revealed four thematic clusters, which were further interpreted through inductive thematic synthesis. This approach allowed the integration of bibliometric insight with culturally grounded interpretation. Reflecting my positionality as a tribal researcher, the review process intentionally centred Indigenous epistemologies, respect and relationality while evaluating how social marketing principles have been applied across diverse Indigenous contexts.
Four thematic clusters emerged: community care and socio-economic determinants; demographic and psychological influences on health behaviour; governance, health policy and structural inequities and cultural competence with context-specific marketing procedures. These clusters show that social marketing interventions succeed when grounded in cultural humility, participatory co-production and Indigenous leadership. Many interventions, however, remain shaped by Western paradigms and do not fully incorporate Indigenous methodologies, long-term sustainability measures or broader geographic representation. The findings highlight that culturally safe, co-created and contextually adapted strategies are essential for improving Indigenous well-being, particularly in communities facing systemic disenfranchisement.
This review includes only English-language studies indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, excluding grey literature, oral knowledge traditions and community-based outputs that often holds deep meaning for Indigenous peoples. These limitations reflect broader structural biases in academic publishing. Nonetheless, the review identifies significant methodological gaps, including limited Indigenous leadership, insufficient formative research and a narrow concentration on settler-colonial nations. These insights invite scholars to engage more deeply with Indigenous worldviews and to design research frameworks that value relationality, self-determination and community ownership of knowledge.
Practitioners must adopt culturally grounded and community-led approaches to social marketing, recognising that behavioural change is inseparable from history, identity and lived experience. Interventions should incorporate local metaphors, languages and traditional communication methods, particularly within oral cultures such as those of the Aravalli tribal belts. Practitioners should collaborate with Indigenous elders, community researchers and youth leaders to ensure cultural safety, relevance and trust. Strengthening cultural competency training, aligning campaigns with Indigenous governance structures and adapting delivery to demographic realities can significantly enhance the uptake and sustainability of health interventions.
The findings underscore the urgent need to address systemic inequities faced by Indigenous peoples by respecting their knowledge systems, cultural protocols and governance traditions. Co-created interventions can strengthen community resilience, reclaim cultural identity and foster social justice by shifting power from extractive research practices towards relational and reciprocal partnerships. Promoting Indigenous-led communication and alternative dissemination formats, such as storytelling, art and visual media, improves accessibility and empowers communities to shape health narratives. Ultimately, these approaches contribute to dignity, self-determination and collective well-being across diverse Indigenous societies.
This study provides the first systematic review to integrate bibliometric cluster analysis with culturally grounded thematic interpretation of global Indigenous-focused social marketing research. By drawing on both scholarly evidence and lived experience as a researcher from the Meena/Mina tribal community of Rajasthan, the review offers a nuanced, relational interpretation rarely reflected in mainstream literature. The conceptual model introduced here advances theoretical understanding by illustrating how cultural competence, formative research, co-production and geographic diversity interact to shape Indigenous well-being. Overall, this study contributes a decolonial lens and presents a pathway for respectful, community-led social marketing practice rooted in Indigenous agency and knowledge systems.
