Category: Health
OKC Tribal Epidemiology Center Offers Public Conference On Native American Health Concerns
By SUSAN SHANNON
8:54 PM FRI MARCH 28, 2014
A two day conference allows a newly created organization to demonstrate its work and research on various health-related issues facing Native Americans in the United States. The sixth annual Tribal Epidemiology Center Public Health Conference’s theme isWhere We Have Been, Where We Are, And Where We Are Going.
Where We Have Been
In the mid 1990’s, Native American tribes saw the need to write their own health stories and maintain their own data banks on health statistics. Funding from the Indian Health Service helped to create the first two epidemiology pilot centers, or EPI Centers.
In 2004, the Oklahoma City area received similar funding to create what is one of twelve centers currently serving the United States’ indigenous population.
Where We Are Now
Tyler Snyder is the epidemiologist at the Tribal Epidemiology Center in Oklahoma City. Snyder says this center is not just about a traditional view of epidemiology.
“What we do here, instead of doing just disease outbreak and surveillance, we provide EPI services in the form of helping people develop surveys, implement the surveys, doing analysis and we also provide training, like tobacco cessation training, intervention training, and training on a number of other health issues,” said Snyder.
“We also provide some community health profiling,” Snyder said. “We look at data from the national level, state level and also some locally collected data and put those together to form a picture for a tribe so we can say ‘here’s what your tribe’s health looks like right now.’
Dr. Tom Anderson (Cherokee), is the director of the so-called EPI Center in Oklahoma City. Anderson said part of the Affordable Care Act reauthorizes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and sets some specific goals.
“Tribal epidemiology centers are to be considered as public health authorities for the area tribes,” Anderson said. “The EPI centers were to carry out seven specific functions including disease surveillance, data collections, evaluation of delivery systems, assist tribes in identifying highest priority health status, recommendations for targeting services, and so on.”
Where We Are Going
Patricia Yarholar (Sac and Fox) is the public health coordinator at The Tribal Epidemiology Center. Yarholar sees the conference as a way to implement some of those directives. The two day conference will hold several behavioral workshops and suicide prevention workshops imbued with native sensibilities.
“We also have the health policy track, we’re going to be having a workshop on incorporating taking culture into policy. Making tribal health programs and employees work with American Indians so it will be culturally appropriate information,” Yarholar said.
“A workshop on accreditation for public health as well as another one on the tribal public health institute is very new and I think a lot of people will be very interested in what this workshop has to share with us,” Yarholar said.
“What it does is reach out to tribes and provides market analysis, organizational and financial analysis in working with Native American tribes,” Yarholar said. “An assessment to determine needs and the potential role that the tribal health public institute has in order to go along the line of organizational structure, and operating costs can be done.”
The AARP will be holding a round table on transportation.
“This relates to a lot of the health disparities people experience because they don’t have transportation to go to appointments or maybe to go to different areas to pick up medication or to pick up proper foods,” Yarholar said.
Other workshops will go over the Affordable Health Care Act, the Health Insurance Marketplace, diabetes in Cherokee children and diabetes in the Kickapoo tribe.
Keynote speakers include Michael Bird(Santa Domingo/San Juan Pueblo), the first Native American to serve as president of the American Public Health Association, and Dr. Jessica Rickerts(Prairie Band Potawatomi), the first female Native American dentist. Rickerts will present a workshop on the dental health of American Indian/Alaska Native Veterans
The 6th Annual Tribal Epidemiology Center Public Health Conference takes place April 29 & 30 in the Fire Lake Grand Casino in Shawnee and is free and open to the public.
Native American donors needed for bone marrow drive in honor of 14-year-old battling cancer
By Sarah Moses | smoses@syracuse.com
on March 27, 2014 at 11:00 AM, updated March 27, 2014 at 11:02 AM
Nedrow, NY — A bone marrow drive will be held Saturday in Nedrow in an effort to find a match for a 14-year-old Northern New York girl who is fighting for her life as she waits for a bone marrow transplant.
Alyson Stiles is battling acute lymphocytic leukemia and finding a bone marrow match has been difficult because Stiles is part Native American.
Stiles’ best chance for finding a match would come from a person with Native American ancestry, said Paula Miller, of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, who organizes local bone marrow drives.
It is very difficult for Native Americans to find matches because there are so few Native Americans donors registered. Miller said there are 10 million registered donors, but only one percent are Native American.
In 2010, a bone marrow drive was held on the Onondaga Nation to find a match for a Cazenovia teen who is part Native American. More than 50 Native Americansjoined the registry during the drive. Miller said those potential donors will remain on the registry until they are 61 years old, but more donors are needed.
The bone marrow drive will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Nedrow Fire Department, which is located at 6505 S. Salina St., in Nedrow. The bone marrow drive is in honor of Stiles, but potential donors of all racial backgrounds are needed to join the registry, Miller said. Thousands of patients on the Be the Match Registry are searching for a match.
Potential donors must also be willing to donate to any patient in need, not just Stiles, Miller said.
Stiles and her family are staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Syracuse as she receives treatment at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital. Stiles was diagnosed with leukemia when she was a toddler. The cancer returned when Stiles was 11 and again recently. Stiles has been sick most of her life.
To be a donor, volunteers must be between 18 and 44 years old and have no history of heart disease, cancer, diabetes or HIV. The collection kit is performed by swabbing the inside of the cheek.
“It’s not painful,” Miller said. “We don’t draw blood. It’s just a quick swab to the inside of your cheek.”
To learn more about the donation process, visit the Be The Match website. For more information about the bone marrow drive in Nedrow, call Paula Miller at 476-3000, ext. 2576.
The bone marrow drive is sponsored by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and in collaboration with the Nedrow Fire Department, Onondaga Nation Fire Department and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central New York.
Sarah Moses covers the northern suburbs of Onondaga County and Oswego County. Contact Sarah at smoses@syracuse.com or 470-2298. Follow@SarahMoses315
Significant drop in DUI fatalities among Native Americans
By John LaCrosse Published: Mar 27, 2014 at 9:40 PM PDT Last Updated: Mar 28, 2014 at 1:21 PM PDT
Watch the newscast here
YAKIMA COUNTY, Wash. — The state patrol’s goal of eliminating traffic fatalities will take the whole community working together to accomplish. A coalition with a school district on the Yakama Nation Reservation is proving that point. The number of Native Americans involved in DUI fatalities has dropped nearly 40 percent in recent years.
Brandon Smith considers himself lucky to have survived a DUI accident.
Luckily, no one was killed. But, Brandon was left with a broken skull.
“I honestly thought I was going to die, because I’ve never been in a car accident previous to that,” said Smith.
Not everyone in DUI crashes is as lucky as Brandon. Native Americans have traditionally seen many DUI fatalities. Nancy Fiander works for Mt. Adams School District; she’s part of a coalition to put a stop to them.
“I’m a lifelong resident, and, growing up and reading the papers, there were times you didn’t want to read the paper because you worried about who you were going to find that you had lost,” said Fiander.
Through several different federal grants, she’s working to turn this trend around. The coalition pinpointed community events that lead to high numbers of DUIs. Emphasis patrols were assigned to these events. They’re made up of Yakama Nation police, WSP, and Yakima County sheriff’s deputies working together. Creating community awareness and stricter enforcement of family and school rules are also paying off.
KIMA pulled the numbers and found the efforts seem to be working.
Just four years ago, Native Americans made up nearly half of all DUI fatalities in our county. That number dropped to only 10 percent last year, with only two out of 19.
“We’re just tired of losing our kids and our family members and our relatives, and so we just want to see if we can do something about that,” said Fiander. “We’re tired of burying our kids.”
It’s education and awareness that saves one life at a time.
This is the fourth year of a five-year federal grant of $125,000. The next emphasis patrol will be this weekend after a men’s basketball tournament in Wapato.
Nancy Fiander will receive a Target Zero award for her efforts next month.
Pollution From Home Stoves Kills Millions Of People Worldwide
By Linda Poon, NPR
Air pollution has become the world’s largest environmental risk, killing an estimated 7 million people in 2012, the World Health Organization says.
That means about 1 out of every 8 deaths in the world each year is due to air pollution. And half of those deaths are caused by household stoves, according to the WHO published Tuesday.
The fumes from stoves that burn coal, wood, dung and leftover crop residues as primary cooking fuels contribute to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and respiratory infections.
“What people have had available to them are primarily wood, dung and crop residues,” says , an environmental health researcher specializing in air pollution at Harvard University who wasn’t involved in the study. “These three fuels are the most polluting fuels on earth per unit of energy extracted.
“They don’t have a lot of energy, so you have to burn a lot of fuel, and that causes a lot of pollution in the process,” Powers told Shots.
People in low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific are most affected, with 3.3 million deaths caused by indoor air pollution annually.
But it’s not an easy problem to fix, despite new technologies like solar, gas and electric stoves that are more efficient and healthier than the biomass stoves many are using today.
“No matter how much you improve biomass stoves … you can have some health benefits but you can’t meet health targets,” she tells Shots.
The challenges, she says, lie in distributing less-polluting stoves to people in rural areas, and getting people to want them. Many of these people sit around the stove to keep warm or use the stove to heat their beds, so more efficient stoves may not be accepted if it forces them to change those habits.
“Even if they are given the stove for free, they end up not using it,” Powers says.
The bigger issue at hand is to get cleaner fuels to people, she adds, which will address not only the health hazards but also the environmental problems.
But because of population growth and increasing cost, the shift to cleaner and more efficient use of energy hasn’t made much progress. In fact, the shift has slowed and even reversed, to the International Energy Agency.
National Native American AIDS Awareness Day
March 20th is National Native American AIDS Awareness Day. AIDS and HIV, though declining nationally, are on the rise in many Native American communities, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. For Tulalip, HIV and AIDS have been steadily climbing, following that trend.
National Native American AIDS Awareness Day is intended to raise awareness about the unique challenges native American communities face that lead to increased risk. While race and ethnicity neither play no part in susceptibility nor create a predisposition to risk of infection, the demographic challenges many Native Americans face to lead to increased risk factors. These include cultural diversity, socioeconomic challenges, substance abuse, societal stigmas, mistrust of government health care, and lack of awareness because of cultural barriers.
National Native American AIDS Awareness day was first observed in 2007, and has been observed on the first day of spring each subsequent annum. To learn more visit http://aids.gov/news-and-events/awareness-days/native/
Awareness resources:
CDC HIV/AIDS info
Government awareness campaign.
Snohomish County Health District
Testing and Community Health Centers:
Sno Co Health District, contact for locations and more information.
Evergreen Aids Foundation, Contact
CHC of Snohomisch Count, Contact to schedule an appointment
Planned Parenthood, contact
Through a Survivor’s Eyes: March 20, National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
Indian Country Today Media Network
PHOENIX—I am Isadore Boni and a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona. Living with HIV has not been easy. A lot of people think you can just take pills, but it’s far greater than that.
I’ve gone through the trenches living on the streets of Phoenix for two years, digging ditches working day-labor at minimum wage. Because of the stigma, I chose to disappear for a while and very rarely communicated with my family. I’ve also dealt with hate-crimes while homeless.
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I knew this was not what I planned for my life. I am a college graduate from Arizona State University. This was not supposed to happen. Several years later after obtaining housing for people with AIDS my life changed. Going public took me to places I never imagined. I became affiliated with the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center sitting on their Community Advisory Council. It was in 2007 that they began the National Native American AIDS Awareness Day.
With the CDC reporting that Native people have the shortest life-span after infection, I decided to do more than expected. I never had a “job” at an AIDS agency. I did all my fundraising through car-washes at the store I worked as a janitor. More than 80 ASU students would volunteer their time to raise funds. This is how I managed to reach Indian country. My tribal council would not embrace me when I was diagnosed; I expected this, I thought it was because of my sexual orientation as well. I began thinking “if I were straight I’d be embraced by everyone.”
National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is held on March 20, and every year I do all I can to share my story, even if it’s to homeless people on the streets. This day is about learning the facts of HIV/AIDS, but also to remember those who are living with HIV/AIDS and those who died of complications.
This is not a city problem; it’s a reservation problem too. If our reservations provided education, testing, and linkage to care, perhaps we wouldn’t have the shortest life-span.
Today, after all the years of educating my people, my tribal council has completely embraced me, even passing a confidentiality law. I still do not have a “job” in this field, but I know people like me are needed I am honored to speak for those who are voiceless, advocate for patient rights, and continue to live my life with the knowledge that my Higher Power guides me. Thy Will, not Mine, be Done.
his article was originally published by Wellbound Storytellers. Read more blogs about healthy living written by Natives throughout Indian country at WellboundStorytellers.com.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/20/through-survivors-eyes-march-20-national-native-american-hivaids-awareness-day-154094
New Emergency Room Guidelines Help Washington Save Millions, Cut ER Visits
Credit UMHealthSystem / Flickr
By Gabriel Spitzer, KPLU
Washington’s Medicaid program saved more than $33 million last year, and a new report gives much of the credit to a big push to reduce emergency room visits.
ERs are a great place to treat real emergencies, but a very expensive place to do run-of-the-mill medical care. So the Health Care Authority, the agency that runs Medicaid, partnered with the Washington State Hospital Association, the Washington State Medical Association and others to adopt seven best practices aimed at ensuring ERs are used for their intended purpose.
They include things like keeping tabs on frequent ER users, referring people to primary care doctors and tightening up policies around prescribing narcotics.
The HCA’s chief medical officer Daniel Lessler says one crucial practice is sharing patient information among ERs, which can reduce costly duplications.
“A patient who is seen in an emergency room for a headache and got a head CT comes in with the same complaint to another emergency room three days later. Without that information, they probably are going to repeat the work-up,” Lessler said.
In fiscal year 2013, ER visits dropped by 10 percent. Visits by those frequent users dropped even more, as did the rate of visits resulting in a scheduled drug prescription.
The ER reforms probably aren’t the only reason for those changes and the cost savings. Lessler says other changes over the same period, like moving people to managed care, probably get some credit.
A large study in Oregon recently found that expanding Medicaid to more people increased ER use, rather than decreasing it as hoped. That finding is controversial, but Lessler notes that Washington’s ER reforms put it in a good position as the state adds hundreds of thousands to the Medicaid rolls as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
The HCA and its partners plan to detail the findings at a noon announcement Thursday.
Nettle, the nutritional nuisance: Hibulb rediscovery program begins annual spring harvest of traditional superfood
By Andrew Gobin, photos by Francesca Hillery
The nuisance in the back yard known for its annoying sting and pungent earthy smell, nettle is not the most desirable flora of the Pacific Northwest. For northwest tribes, however, nettle is a cultural and traditional staple. The Rediscovery Program at the Hibulb Cultural Center began their spring harvest of nettle sprouts March 12th, working to reintroduce the use of nettle into the community and continuing the revitalization of our culture.
Inez Bill, who has spent the last ten years learning about how to use nettle, harvested nettle sprouts on the bluff above Arcadia on the Tulalip Reservation. Derek Houle, who has been involved with the culture program for most of his life, and Lauw-Ya Spencer, who became involved in 2012 through the summer youth program, joined Bill as they gathered the sprouts to use in the rediscovery program. They then process the nettle sprouts for use in foods and preserve some nettle for continued use throughout the year.
“Nettle was a staple for our people for hundreds of years,” explained Bill, “It has tremendous health benefits. For food you have to harvest the sprouts in the spring, or in the summer you can harvest the tops of the nettle, the stock gets too hard. Here at the museum we have expanded the uses. We make nettle tea and different flavored lemonades with nettle tea. We also have created Hibulb Bread, which is like buckskin bread, only more healthy and nutritional.”
Bill and her husband, the late Hank Gobin, learned to harvest and prepare nettle and other traditional flora from Valerie Segrest, Elise Krohn, and the late Bruce Miller, whose dedicated themselves to cultural revitalization and educating about traditional flora. Bringing that knowledge to the rediscovery program, Bill continues their work in revitalizing traditional plant use. As a girl, Bill’s elders instilled in her the respect and reverence for these traditional plants as foods and as medicines and she hands down those teachings throughout the rediscovery program. She also gets creative, incorporating nettle into many recipes.
“The Hibulb bread is diabetic friendly. It is made with ground almond meal instead of flour, and without salt or sugar. Ground nettle is added, but we had to play around with how much was the right amount.” said Bill.
A true superfood, nettle is packed with nutrients. It can be ground up and added to almost any dish for a healthy boost. The cultural center makes a seasoning, ground nettle for recipe ingredients, blanched and frozen nettle for later in the year, nettle stock, nesto (nettle pesto), and so much more. As a cultural staple, beyond food, nettle was traditionally made into twine and nets, it is one of the stronger natural twines.
To learn more about the rediscovery program, or to participate in activities, contact Inez Bill at the Hibulb Cultural Center at (360) 716-2638.
Sidebar:
Nutrients of nettle mg/100g (About 1 Cup)
- Calcium 2900
- Magnesium 860
- Iron 41.8
- Potassium 1750
- Vitamin A 18,700 AU
- Vitamin C 83
- Thiamine .54
- Riboflavin .43
- Niacin 5.2
- Chromium 3.9
- Cobalt 13.2
- Phosphorus 447
- Zinc 4.7
- Manganese 860
- Selenium 2.2
- Sodium 4.9
- Protein 16.5%
Andrew Gobin is a reporter with the See-Yaht-Sub, a publication of the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department.
Email: agobin@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Phone: (360) 716.4188
Recipe: Native American Fry-Bread Taco
Source: The Gutsy Gourmet
Fry-bread is a native American all time favorite. It is the “Fry-Bread concessions that have the longest lines at the Pow Wows and Native American Dance and Drum Festivals. Fry-bread and especially fry bread Tacos will vary from tribe to tribe, band to band and family to family. Below is a recipe that is common to the Navajo and neighboring tribes.
INGREDIENTS: MAKES 2 – 4
INGREDIENTS FOR FRY-BREAD MAKES (4 ) “6 – 7″ or (2) 8″ INCH FRY BREADS
● 1 Cup(s) unbleached flour
● ½ Teaspoon(s) Salt
● 5 or more Cup(s) Warm Water
● 1 Tablespoon(s) powdered milk
● 1 ½ Teaspoon(s) baking powder (add another ½ Teaspoon for more rise)
● ½ Cup(s) water
● 2 Cup(s) Cooking Oil for frying
Makes 3-4 fry-bread depending on the size you make the bread.
INGREDIENTS TACO TOPPING Suggestions**SEE COOK’S NOTE**
● 1 lb. Ground Drained Hamburger
● 1 Packet Taco Seasoning or use your own recipe (cumin, garlic salt, New Mexico chili powder)
● 1 can Cooked Black Beans or Pinto Beans
● ½ cup corn kernels
● Chopped Tomatoes
● Shredded iceberg Lettuce
● Grated Cheddar Cheese, Monterey pepper Jack, or Mexican cheese.
● Salsa, your favorite blend, red or green, hot or mild (salsa verde goes well)
● Sour Cream
*COOKS NOTE*
Feel free to alter this recipe to your own tastes, especially the topping. Change the salsa, make it hotter or milder, use your favorite beans, use pork, chicken or fish for the meat. Add Jalapeños or Chipotlè or load it up with your favorite cheese.
DIRECTIONS FOR FRY-BREAD:
1. Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl together and whisk them together thoroughly.
2. Pour the water over the dry ingredients and stir them together with a fork until the mixture starts to clump up. I used a whisk in the video and that’s OK! to start with but it gets messy when the clumping starts so I have elected to always use the fork in the future.
3. Now while the mixture is still in the bowl flour your hands.
4. Now use your hand or hands and begin rolling the dough or moving it about the bowl to pick up all the excess flour in the bowl to coat the outside of the dough. Don’t knead the dough. You want to form a ball that is well floured on the outside and still doughy on the inside. Kneading this dough will make the resulting product heavy and take away from it’s flexibility and chew. You want the inside of the dough sticky after the ball is formed.
5. Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces and using your freshly floured hands you can stretch and shape and press the dough into any shape you want. Navajo Taco’s do not have to been perfectly round as they are not a perfect dish. If you want to roll the dough into a ball and use a roller for uniformity that is fine too. Form your dough into 6 to 7 inch rough diameters.
6. Heat your oil in pan. You want a minimum of ½ inch of oil in the pan. The skillet should be 10 -12 inches in diameter. Heat to 375℉.
7. Take your formed dough, and cooking each fry-bread one at a time gently place the dough into the hot oil so you don’t get any splatter.
8. Press your dough down with the flat of your spatula to get the fry bread to submerge in the oil to get some of the hot oil on the top of the dough. You may want to do this a couple of time for each side of the fry-bread.
9. Fry each side until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Make sure they are golden brown on the outside. They will be chewy on the inside.
10. The fry bread you make will stay warm in your oven while you make the filling. Do not heat in the microwave unless you know what you are doing, as this will make the fry-bread tough and impossible to eat.
11. Now this recipe will make 3 to 4 fry 6-7 inch fry-breads. This is for an open face taco. If you want to fold them like a usual taco, you will get two fry-breads about 8 inches in diameter from this recipe.