A Conversation with the Honorable Dr. Charles Grim

And then we're working on a lot of partnerships internal to the Department of Health and Human Services with the National Institutes of Health, who now probably add an additional $6 million to $7 million of research money coming in through us to Indian Country. We have agreements like that with the Centers for Disease Control, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, lot of the departmental organizations that we're working together with now to try to tackle some of the problems in Indian country. So we're actually getting funds coming from other people's budgets.

But Secretary Thompson sort of re-invigorated something called the Intradepartmental Council on Native American Affairs. And that's where myself and my counterparts elect the head of NIH, the head of CDC, and the head of Medicare and Medicaid services - the head of all the different agencies that're in HHS - we get together multiple times a year to talk about cross-cutting policy and/or funding issues around American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native American Issues. And one of the big things that's come out of that, is we're doing a study right now about all the programs in HHS, and how many are available to Indian country. We've identified 320 different programs, grant or otherwise, and we found out by the study that we've done so far, that the tribes are eligible for about 125 of those different grants or programs. But right now, at least one tribe or more has only sought funding from 85 of those 125. So we're in the process right now of doing further research to see, number one, why only 125 programs? Should there be more eligible? And if the number is either 125 or higher, why are tribes only accessing 85 of them?

TC:  The Seattle Indian Health Board is about to release a report talking about the health disparities among urban Indians. I think the 2000 survey census reports 60 percent of all American Indians now live in urban areas, and I wonder if you think the federal government should be doing more to address the health disparities among urban Indians.

CG:  Well, and many of the things going on in the President's 2005 budget that we're seeing released right now, and even in the 2004 budget, are dealing with things that are going to help people in urban areas, not only around health care, but around other things. And I'm trying to remember if Ralph [Forquera, Executive Director of the Seattle Indian Health Board] has given me a copy of that, but he at least told me, or else I've seen excerpts that say that they've found that the populations in urban areas are sort of no better than many of the other urban ethnic minorities, and they compared them a lot to the African American population, because there's so many statistics on them, whereas there are not statistics on a lot of Indians in urban areas.