The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #51188

Carol Ballew, PhD, The Alaska Native Epidemiology Center, Alaska Native Health Board, 3700 Woodland Dr. Suite 500, Anchorage, AK 99517, (907) 562-6006, cballew@anhb.org and Rebecca S. Wells, SM, Alaska Native Epidemiology Center, Alaska Native Health Board, 3700 Woodland Dr. Suite 500, Anchorage, AK 99517.

Alaska has 229 federally-recognized Alaska Native tribes and several other Native communities that have not yet achieved federal recognition. Each is a sovereign entity, usually corresponding to a village. Most have chosen to organize into one of 22 Tribal Health Corporations for overseeing their own health care. Seventeen of the Tribal Health Corporations, along with a few independent villages, have formed the Alaska Native Health Board to address health and social issues of broad concern to the Native population of Alaska. The Alaska Native EpiCenter collaborates with Native communities, the Tribal Health Corporations, the University of Alaska, the State of Alaska, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Indian Health Service to perform a wide variety of surveillance functions on behalf of Alaska Native populations statewide and conducts epidemiologic investigations at the request of communities. The EpiCenter has a strong commitment to capacity building and skills transfer in working with Native communities and a commitment to conduct work only with communities that actively seek to take part in projects and that document community consensus to participate. At the regional and state level, we also work on an exclusively consensus basis. This provides communities with a powerful sense of ownership of programs.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe public health and epidemiologic issues impacting Alaska Native people and process used for the Alaska Native Epidemiology Center to address them.
• To identify common themes about how epidemiologic capacity can be built in Indian County in the US
• 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: Alaska Natives, Epidemiology

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.