For decades, state and federal agencies have restricted or delayed tribes and tribal epidemiology centers from accessing public health data, a blackout that leaves health workers in Native American communities cobbling together information to guide their work, including tracking devastating disease outbreaks.
Although Native American and Alaska Native adults are enrolled in Medicaid at higher rates than their white counterparts, many tribal leaders feel they’ve been left in the dark as states roll through the tumultuous Medicaid unwinding that started last year.
Hundreds of Native American tribes are getting money from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription painkillers. Some are investing it in sweat lodges, statistical models, and insurance-billing staffers.
The state is looking at ways to weed out false reporting of child abuse and neglect as the number of reports reaches a record high.
Tires emit huge volumes of particles and chemicals as they roll along the highway, and researchers are only beginning to understand the threat. One byproduct of tire use, 6PPD-q, is in regulators’ crosshairs after it was found to be killing fish.
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
Native American leaders see bison herds and ancestral gardens as ways to bring healthy eating to their people.
Native Americans and rural residents are underrepresented in medical schools. But in this new program, 25% of students are Indigenous and half are from rural areas.
Community health workers, who often help patients get to their appointments and pick up prescriptions for them, have increasingly been recognized as an integral part of treating chronic illnesses. But state-run Medicaid programs don’t always reimburse them equally, usually excluding those who work on tribal lands.
