The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #51064

Maile Taualii, BA¹, Ralph Forquera, MPH¹, and Michael S. Smyser, MPH². (1) Seattle Indian Health Board, PO Box 3364, Seattle, WA 98114, (206) 324-9360, mailet@sihb.org, (2) Epidemiology, Planning and Evaluation Unit, Public Health - Seattle & King County, 999 Third Avenue, Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98104

Background: As the number of a American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) living off reservation grows, Urban Indian Health Programs (UIHP) are faced with many challenges including scarce resources and a growing need for health services. While health problems for AI/AN are generally recognized to exist in urban centers, specific information assessing their health status or needs is largely unavailable. One explanation for the limited data is the great diversity of programs that target and serve urban AI/AN. While no standard model exists for UIHP, finding common ground to quantitatively describe these programs and the needs of the people they serve must be found.

Methods: The Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI) based at the Seattle Indian Health Board, has developed a web-based system to gather information to describe and assess urban Indian service populations and programs.

Results: An initial survey on diabetes was completed by 27 of the 32 (84%) UIHP in less than 2 weeks. From this survey, the responding 27 programs reported that they serve approximately 5,100 clients with diabetes of whom 93% are AI/AN.

Conclusions: The rapid response of programs to the initial survey on diabetes demonstrates the promise of using web-based technology to facilitate UIHP assessments. Additional testing and standardization of the new system is required to evaluate and improve the overall effectiveness of the approach. Continued efforts will be made to promote the strong collaboration of the UIHP who have expressed the need to have a collective and accurate database describing their service populations.

Learning Objectives:

• 1) Describe public health and epidemiologic issues impacting Urban Indian Health and the SIHB Urban “Epi Center”.
• 2) To identify common themes about how epidemiologic capacity can be built in Indian County in the US
• 3) Describe relevant epidemiologic methods or important health and health risk findings from activities conducted by the “Epi Centers” that could be used to improve the health and well being of Native peoples in the US.

Keywords: Epidemiology, American Indians

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.