Medical Disparities Among the Native American Population

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  One of the biggest tragedies in our country's history has been the treatment of the Native American/Indigenous peoples that have been living here long before the first Europeans arrived. These Natives, what have come to be known as American Indian & Alaska Natives, or AI/AN, have been here for centuries and some tribes can be traced back thousands of years. The story of ruthless settlement in this country is all too familiar to us, the land was taken, forcing the native population to surrender and resettle to reservations throughout the country. The focus of this post is how the mistreatment and injustices have continued well into the current century.




    When looking at medical data posted on the Indian Health Services (IHS) website from 2019, the AI/AN community suffers from the highest mortality rates of any race in the entire country. The data was comparing the mortality rates between AI/AN people (2009 to 2011) and all other races in the U.S. (2010). The figures posted are truly staggering, according to the IHS, the AI/AN community has a nearly 33% higher overall mortality rate than all other races combined. There were 16 causes of death listed, and of those, perhaps the most alarming is the alcohol-induced deaths. The data measured the mortality rates per 100,000 people in the respective races. The AI/AN mortality rate was 50 per 100,000 compared to the 7.6 per 100,000 for all other races in the United States. That's a ratio of 6.6! Other high disparities include chronic liver disease/cirrhosis and diabetes.

What this points to is that there is a terrible amount of underfunding for programs, clinics, and overall services that this population desperately needs. These are people that have called this place home for hundreds if not thousands of years, long before many of us and our families decided to move here.



Written by Gabriel Diaz-Pacheco

CDC - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6747a4.htm

IHS -  https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/

American Bar Association -https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/native-american-crisis-in-health-equity/




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