You are here:
TRIBAL ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC HEALTH INDICATORS
Impact/Purpose:
The overarching goals of the proposed research plan are to create and test environmental public health indicators (EPHIs) specific to Native American tribal communities in the Puget Sound/ Salish Sea region of the Pacific Northwest. The hypothesis being tested is that the public health of Native American communities is more accurately evaluated when the health indicators employed reflect Native American definitions of health. The objectives of the proposed research are:
(1) to establish a set of environmental public health indicators for Coast Salish communities in the Puget Sound region that reflect the communities’ meanings and prioritizations of health;
(2) to test the tribal–specific indicator set by employing it to assess the health status of the tribal communities; and,
(3) to evaluate the efficacy of the tribal-specific indicator set by reviewing the health status results with tribes.
Description:
Tribal-specific EPHIs are necessary because current U.S. government public health regulations and policies are based on a position that views risks and impacts as objective measures of dose-response assessments and physiological morbidity or mortality outcomes but does not otherwise connect them to social or cultural beliefs and values integral to Native American definitions of health. For many Native American communities, the issue of how health is defined and assessed in policies and regulations is a high priority because of the considerable environmental public health risks they face from the contamination of their territories and natural resources. By constructing a more complex, narrative set of indicators beyond the physiological for tribal communities, a more accurate picture of health status is gained with which to better evaluate and manage tribal public health risks and impacts.