We are the team at Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) and the Northwest Native American Research Center for Health / Public Health Research Academy. We (Stephanie Craig Rushing, Celena Ghost Dog, Amanda Gaston, Grazia Cunningham at NPAIHB, and Allyson Kelley at AKA PLLC) have been evaluating culturally relevant programs, interventions, curricula, and conferences for a long time.
Stephanie Craig Rushing, Celena Ghost Dog, Amanda Gaston, Grazia Cunningham at NPAIHB, and Allyson Kelley
November 16, 2023
Seven Directions, a Center for Indigenous Public Health based at the University of Washington in Seattle, hosted the Our Nations, Our Journeys 2023 Indigenous Public Health Conference from June 27-29, at the Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Over 300 participants, including Indigenous public health leaders, activists, researchers, and collaborators, convened to explore the theme, “Healing from the Opioid Epidemic through Strengths-based Approaches and Data Sovereignty.” Participants learned about and discussed an array of topics, such as culturally grounded approaches to healing and recovery, opportunities to improve data for substance use prevention and response, and efforts to promote Indigenous data sovereignty. Among the attendees and presenters, there was a strong representation from many of the Tribal Epidemiology Centers.
Seven Directions is immensely grateful for all of the knowledge shared by participating TEC Directors and staff. See some of the conference highlights below!
Dr. Kevin English, Director of the Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center, hosted a breakout session on June 28, presenting “Data Opportunities for Tribal Opioid Overdose Prevention & Control.” English shared information about currently available data sources that can be leveraged to characterize the burden of opioids among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, including opportunities for opioid-related data and surveillance enhancement and primary data collection.
Michael Mudgett, Substance Use Epidemiologist at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, hosted a breakout session on June 28, presenting “Improving AI/AN Overdose Data Through Data Linkages.” In this presentation, Mudgett described how NPAIHB has utilized data linkages to correct racial misclassification and address the improvement of drug overdose mortality data among American Indian and Alaska Native people in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho vital statistics databases, respectively.
Tim Collins, Senior Epidemiologist at the Alaska Native Epidemiology Center, led an experiential learning session on June 29, titled, “Opioids and the Brain: How Augmented Reality can inform treatment and build health literacy.” In this session, participants had the opportunity to wear a Hololens2 headset to experience interactive holograms that illustrate the potential effects of opioid use on the brain and how treatment can help. Collins also discussed the rationale for using augmented reality in patient education, special considerations for substance use disorders, and limitations of the technology.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA, is an enrolled citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and is currently the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute and executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board. What’s Next Health spoke with Ms. Echo-Hawk about her recent work to decolonize data — where Indigenous peoples and nations have ownership over the collection, management, and dissemination of their own data — which is supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
In this video presentation to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) Tribal Technical Advisory Group (TTAG) Data Subcommittee on May 23, 2023, Meghan O’Connell, MD, MPH (Chief Public Health Officer of the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board) and Chris Alibrandi O’Connor, JD (Deputy Director, Mid-States Region Office for The Network for Public Health Law) share the legal basis for Tribal Epidemiology Center’s (TEC) access to protected health information for public health purposes.
With the reauthorization of the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act in 2010, TECs were designated as “public health authorities” which allows TECs the same access to protected health information/data for public health purposes as other public health authorities, like state health departments.
These activities were supported through a variety of funding opportunities including the coordination and collaboration activities made possible by the Indian Health Service and the CDC’s Tribal Epidemiology Centers Public Health Infrastructure program, National Center for Chronic Disease and Prevention and Health Promotion, Healthy Tribes Program.
The Southern Plains Tribal Health Board recently concluded its very first virtual internship cohort with 46 students who completed the virtual 8-week experience. The Tribal Health Experiential Student Internship Seminar (THESIS) program was one of seven organizations awarded, and the only program to focus solely on Tribal public health and Native American health.
The program gave undergraduate students nationwide a glimpse of working in Indian Country with first-hand accounts of staff actively employed in positions within Tribal nations, universities, TECs, health departments, and federal and other partnering Tribal organizations.
Funded by the CDC’s Office of Health Equity (OHE), students were led through a wide range of courses focusing on Tribal public health with a curriculum around evaluation, cultural competency, racial misclassification, data collection, epidemiology, and professional skills. Students also experienced being paired with a mentor, who guided them throughout the 8-weeks on a research poster project that would be presented at the CDC Lewis Ferguson Showcase in Atlanta, Georgia. Examples of research posters included topics over food deserts, culturally relevant Native youth curriculum, Native American oral health, mental health, and health disparities among Native American communities.
Through THESIS, students were not only exposed to tribal public health as a career but also to the diverse landscape that is public health. “We want students to be exposed to aspects of Native public health to gain different perspectives when choosing their profession. We often hear, ‘I wish I would have been taught that’ from working public health employees,” Gary Piercey, Program Coordinator, said. “This gives students a chance to really investigate some of the topics that are meaningful to them.”
Abby Mayes, a member of the Cherokee Nation stated, “I enjoyed the THESIS program greatly. I enjoyed the topics that were presented and was able to research how the COVID-19 pandemic directly impacted the Native American population within the state of Oklahoma in 2021. This internship gave me the opportunity to learn about Tribal Health, which I had yet to learn about from my previous public health courses in college.”
THESIS intern students at the CDC Showcase in Atlanta, Georgia.
Jordan Craig, a member of the Cherokee Nation, answers questions over her poster presentation, “Addressing Gaps in Prenatal Care for American Indian and Alaska Native People with Opioid Use Disorder.”
If you know of an undergraduate student interested in Tribal public health, applications for the 2024 year will be available on October 1, 2023, at the website https://thesis.spthb.org/.
THESIS intern students at the CDC Showcase in Atlanta, Georgia.
