A measure passed by the U.S. House aims to remove barriers that Native Americans face in accessing public health data – something advocates say is key to providing a clearer picture of how COVID-19 and other diseases are disproportionately affecting tribes.

Experts said Native Americans have been denied access to some state and federal health data for years, and the pandemic has further exposed this long-standing issue.

By Frank LaTona
October 7, 2020

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Photo: Legislation making its way through Congress aims to reaffirm that tribal epidemiology centers should have access to state and federal health data. Tribal leaders have had trouble accessing information to help fight COVID-19 and other diseases in places like the Navajo Nation, where this sign stands. Credit: Daja E. Henry/Cronkite News

Abigail Echo-Hawk can’t even count how many times she’s been called a troublemaker. It’s happened at conferences, workshops, and even after she testified before Congress—all places where she has advocated for the full and ethical inclusion of American Indians and Alaska Natives in public health data. “I didn’t used to know what to say,” she says. “Now, my answer is, ‘Is calling for justice making trouble?’”

By Lizzie Wade
September 24, 2020

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Photo:“If you eliminate us in the data, we no longer exist,” says Abigail Echo-Hawk, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. Credit: Katty Huertas

“It’s going to require a generation of good policy to make up for generations of bad policy.”

A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Dr. Donald Warne had an early interest in medical work—he comes from a long line of traditional healers.

Delilah Friedler
August 17, 2020

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Photo: Mother Jones illustration
Credit: Courtesy of the University of North Dakota.