A recent report Reveals Striking Data on Health Disparities in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities. CareQuest Institute for Oral Health , the Society of American Indian Dentists (SAID), and the National Indian Health Board’s (NIHB) Tribal Oral Health Initiative released the report on oral health disparities in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. The white paper report called, “American Indian and Alaska Native Communities Face a ‘Disproportionate Burden of Oral Disease’: Reversing Inequities Involves Challenges and Opportunities,” includes striking new data and offers strategic recommendations on how to address disparities and inequities facing AI/AN communities. Filled with graphics, quotes, and frameworks, the paper details how historical and intergenerational trauma including genocide, exposure to infectious diseases, forced boarding school attendance, lack of access to nutritional and affordable food, and lack of access to routine preventive care place AI/AN communities at high risk of poor overall and oral health outcomes.
The Social Security Administration recently established an office for helping Native Americans. The agency, in its words, wants to elevate and centralize efforts devoted to tribal members and Alaska Natives. The director of the Office Native American Partnerships, Richard Litsey says the office is important because unfortunately native people do not take full advantage of their social security benefits. Litsey says “education” will be key to fulfilling his role and that of the new office.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
