Health and the Urban Indian

New Report Shows Serious Health Disparities
Among Urban American Indians and Alaska Natives

"We’re hoping that we’ll be involved in some of the initiatives around health disparities," Forquera said. "We want people to be cognizant of the fact that when Indians are included in this debate, often its just tribal communities and not urban communities, and that there ought to be more attention to urban Indians."

The report notes that mortality rates for Indians living in some urban areas are substantially below that of the general population and urged studies to determine why the statistics in those areas differ from the 34 areas used for the study. The report also suggested that future studies of the health status of urban Indians need to include assessments of data that reflect health behaviors and social determinants of health, such as economic opportunity, daily stress, discrimination when seeking health services, mental health, trust or confidence in the health care system, language and other cultural factors.

Forquera said the findings of the study have been reported by media outlets around the country and that requests have come in for copies from colleges and from other Native American organizations. A number of copies have also made their way to key policy makers in Washington, D.C., he said.

"We have gotten quite a few copies to members of Congress and the Administration, and we’re just waiting for the next steps in the process," Forquera said. "In general, its had fairly good circulation for such a small report."

The full text of the report can be found at http://www.uihi.org

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Please contact Miles White at mwhite@u.washington.edu