Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115298

Selina A. Mohammed, PhD, RN, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Women's Health Disparities Interdisciplinary Training Grant, School of Nursing, University of Michigan, 400 North Ingalls, Room 4320, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, (734) 327-0927, selinam@umich.edu

Diabetes among American Indians has conventionally been cast as a disease state determined by genetics, diet, and exercise. This paper expands beyond these individualistic factors, exploring diabetes in relation to a political history that shapes economic structures today for urban American Indians. In this critical ethnographic study, urban American Indian participants (n=20) living in Seattle, Washington, attributed diabetes to historical, institutionalized, and everyday encounters with dominant society. These encounters are predominantly based upon racialized and class biases that have led to the marginalization of American Indians within urban settings. One consequence of this social marginality is the concomitant issue of inferior economic positioning. For urban American Indians, this positioning began with federal policies that segregated American Indians into poverty-stricken urban residential areas and provided them with vocational training tracked toward low-end jobs in the labor market. Today, many American Indians continue to move from reservations in search of higher education and employment opportunities. However, within urban settings, inequalities in income still prevail due to racialized hierarchies that control economic means of production. Participants' narratives revealed the compromises that urban American Indians often have to make to economically survive, the structural barriers of low income to diabetes management, and the difficult realities of ending cycles of poverty under current federal and state policies. These findings raise questions regarding how to make economic resources more available to improve health outcomes for urban American Indians.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant in this session will be able to

• Articulate the relationship between racialization, socioeconomic status, and urban Native constructions of diabetes.
• Identify two areas where economic resources can be made more available to improve health outcomes for urban American Indians.

Keywords: American Indians, Diabetes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.