Historical trauma has been associated with many health and social issues. However, there is little understanding of how American Indian (AI) youth cope with historical trauma. Sense of Coherence (SOC) provides a promising framework for studying the relationship between resiliency and historical trauma, as it is a theorized mechanism that helps individuals cope with ongoing stress. A multi-method study examining the potential relationship between SOC and historical trauma revealed that higher levels of SOC predicted fewer historical trauma-related symptoms and provided rich detail about how an AI youth sample conceptualized stress and coping. Implications and future directions are discussed.
American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) have the highest smoking prevalence, smoking-related disease, and mortality rates of any racial or ethnic group. Three AI health clinics in Minnesota implemented an evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment intervention that included provider education and customized clinical system tools. A baseline assessment of each clinic facility guided the focus of the intervention and tailored the clinical system tools. Clinic staff were assessed with pre/post-training evaluations and annual assessments. Results indicated self-reported improvements in the rate of identifying smoking status (57% to 89%), documenting smoking status (from 60% to 80%), and providing evidence-based treatments such as pharmacotherapy (from 36% to 78%).
This review examined validation studies of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) to identify an appropriate postpartum depression (PPD) screening tool for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women in the U.S. Databases were searched using: EPDS paired with psychometric properties or validation and PHQ-9 paired with PPD and psychometric properties or validation, yielding a final sample of 58 articles. Both tools have good internal consistency, but discriminative validity for detecting PPD in women from non-Western cultures is low. Positive predictive values in these women are low and diverse (EPDS [n = 21] median 67%, range 21.1-90%; PHQ-9 [n = 1] median 26%). The low predictive accuracy of both tools suggests the tools may be culturally biased.
Alaska Native and American Indian (AN/AI) people experience a disproportionate burden of health disparities in the United States. Including AN/AI people in pharmacogenetic research offers an avenue to address these health disparities, however the dissemination of pharmacogenetic research results in the community context can be a challenging task. In this paper, we describe a case-study that explores the preferences of AN/AI community members regarding pharmacogenetic research results dissemination. Results were presented as a PowerPoint presentation at the 2016 Alaska Native Health Research Forum (Forum). An audience response system and discussion groups were used to gather feedback from participants. Descriptive statistics were used to assess attendee understanding of the presentation content. Thematic analysis was used to analyze discussion group data. Forum attendees needed time to work through the concept of pharmacogenetics and looked for ways pharmacogenetics could apply to their daily life. Attendees found pharmacogenetics interesting, but wanted a simple description of pharmacogenetics. Community members were optimistic about the potential benefit pharmacogenetic medicine could have in the delivery of health care and expressed excitement this research was taking place. Researchers were urged to communicate throughout the study, not just end research results, to the community. Furthermore, attendees insisted their providers stay informed of research results that may have an impact on health care delivery. Conversational forms of dissemination are recommended when disseminating pharmacogenetic research results at the community level.