An Interview with AAIP President Dr. Jim Thompson

TC: What would that look like for you?

JT: I think you’d have to get the opinion leaders together and get them to help you reach out to the community. And by opinion leaders, I mean not just politicians, although they’re important too, but also people in the media. I think what has to happen in Indian communities is there needs to be a national impetus that doesn’t prescribe exactly what’s going to happen in each community because the approach may be somewhat different in each community. But if we could get something going, where there were resources behind that kind of outreach effort to alert Indian people to the health issues that they need to pay attention to, that would be a wonderful initiative, if the Federal government was willing to put some resources into it.

TC: As far as getting health news to the population, it seems that a lot of Native American newspapers don't have health sections, and they tend to have less health news in general than mainstream newspapers.

JT: I think you're absolutely right about that. And I think the reason is because there is nobody in those local areas saying to the news people, "Look, this is important stuff, it needs to be in there." I don't think it's because they don't want it there. I think nobody's thinking about it, personally. A good thing for local Indian clinics to do, for instance, would be to try to get some health items in the media. But if we had resources on the national level to produce materials, it would make these local efforts much more effective. For instance, I worked for an association for five years, where we had a packet that we would renew every once in a while with articles for newspapers and radio and TV, and we would circulate that. We had a laundry list of media people. But it takes resources to do that. I'm focusing on the media, but there are probably in any given community a number of avenues you can take to circulate information. In the African American community, for example, the churches are important sources of information, and I think in some Indian communities that's true too. Not all of them, but in some of them.

TC: Is there anything else you would like to touch upon that perhaps we have not already discussed?

JT: You know, I think AAIP is maturing into an organization that really is going to have an increasing voice in health care policy in this country. I think that that’s an important role that we need to pick up on and really do a good job with. And that means not only the kinds of things we’re talking about, which is getting information out to the people themselves, but also to make efforts in Washington and in the state capitals and the various places where health policy is made that affects Indian people. We’re not a lobbying organization and never will be but certainly we’re an organization that can provide valuable information not only to the people but the policy makers as well.