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Abstract #153565

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Anthony Fleg, School of Public Health/Medicine, UNC Chapel Hill, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Shannon Fleg, Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, UNC Chapel Hill, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, 919.260.3861, fleg@email.unc.edu, Bruce Swett, The Healing Lodge, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Susan Leadingfox, EBCI Health and Medical Division, Cherokee Tribe, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Mark Deese, Indian Education Center, Robeson County, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Joey Bell, MD, Pembroke Pediatrics, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Danny Bell, American Indian Studies Department, UNC Chapel Hill, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, Adam Goldstein, MD, Department of Family Medicine, UNC Chapel Hill, 302 Knolls St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516, and Emily Van Dyke, School of Public Health, Harvard University, 207 Park Drive, Apt 345, Boston, MA 02215.

To both address the health inequities faced by American Indians (AI) in North Carolina, and to utilize the unique resources within this population to address health concerns, the Native Health Initiative (NHI) was created in 2004 as a partnership between health professions students and North Carolina's American Indian communities. NHI operates on four principles: (1) educating future health care providers on AI health issues, (2) tribe-directed, sustainable projects (3) empowering American Indian youth, and (4) supporting cultural exchange. The lack of an infrastructure connecting universities and AI communities, historical scars from exploitation by academia, and lack of AI health data were initial barriers. However, using a community-oriented model, allowing tribal leaders to develop NHI and its projects, while providing logistical support to aid their efforts and ideas, these hurdles were overcome. NHI's work involves research on health issues relevant to North Carolina's tribes (e.g. factors behind the high rates of teen pregnancy), health interventions in tribal communities (e.g. health education on diabetes and diet), and collaborative efforts with other organizations (e.g. working through entities on the UNC-CH campus to create a permanent home for NHI, a medical school course in AI health, and undergraduate service trips to AI communities). Through two years of work it is both clear that there are substantial, un-addressed health inequities in the AI population and that collaborative efforts can begin to meet these needs and “heal” the scars left from the research paradigms of the past.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate the differences in health care systems experienced by state and federally recognized tribes
• Illustrate the importance of community asset mapping and community-directed efforts in projects with American Indian communities
• Demonstrate logistics of setting up a community-directed partnership

Keywords: American Indians, Community Collaboration

Related Web page: www.unc.edu/~flega

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered

• Slides (pdf) or Handout