Alaska medicine最新文献

Objective: Provide an overview and examples of some of the remote sensing technologies presently or potentially available, which could be used to address environmental health problems in the Arctic.

Study design: The vulnerability of Arctic populations to health impacts from environmental, weather, and climate-related factors underscores the need for increased applications of technologies such as remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and global positioning systems (GPS) for empowering local health officials and decision-makers to better predict environment-related health problems, decrease vulnerabilities, take preventative measures, and improve community response actions as well as increase community health literacy.

Methods/results: These increased capabilities for monitoring, risk mapping, information sharing, communications, and surveillance of environmental parameters are powerful tools for addressing such environmentally-related health problems as thermal stress; extreme weather; contaminant transport and deposition into oceans, atmosphere, and ice; air and water quality; built environment impacts; ultraviolet radiation (UV); and infectious and vector-borne diseases. For example, systems are now in place, which can observe ocean parameters, providing information on algal blooms, pollutants and pathogens as well as storm assessments and sea level rise.

Conclusion: Space-based systems in place can contribute valuable information through monitoring the processes of long-range transport of pollutants to the Arctic, where accumulation in animals and plants can occur. It is well-known that biomagnification up the food chain and ultimate consumption as traditional foods by indigenous peoples have resulted in some of the highest exposures in the world to certain contaminants.

Life expectancy in Arctic populations has greatly improved over the last 50 years. Much of this improvement can be attributed to health research that has resulted in a reduction in morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, and the vaccine-preventable diseases of childhood. However, despite these improvements in health indicators of Arctic residents, life expectancy and infant mortality remain higher in indigenous Arctic residents in the US Arctic, northern Canada, and Greenland when compared to Arctic residents of Nordic countries. The International Polar Year (IPY) represents a unique opportunity to focus world attention on Arctic human health and to further stimulate Circumpolar cooperation on emerging Arctic human health concerns. The Arctic Human Health Initiative (AHHI) is an Arctic Council IPY initiative that aims to build and expand on existing Arctic Council and International Union for Circumpolar Health (IUCH) human health research activities. The human health legacy of the IPY will be increased visibility of the human health concerns of Arctic communities, revitalization of cooperative Arctic human health research focused on those concerns, the development of health policies based on research findings, and the subsequent implementation of appropriate interventions, prevention and control measures at the community level.

Objectives: Evaluate the course of the International Congress(es) on Circumpolar Health (ICCH) and the Circumpolar movement in the context of concomitant historical events. Make recommendations for future Circumpolar health research.

Study design: MEDLINE search and historical archive search of ICCH proceedings.

Methods: Search of all PubMed resources from 1966 concerning the Circumpolar health movement. Two University of Alaska Anchorage archive collections were searched: the C. E. Albrecht and Frank Pauls Archive Collections.

Results: Eleven sets of proceedings manuscripts and one set of proceedings abstracts were evaluated. There was a trend toward consistent use of existing journals with indexing in Index Medicus; shorter intervals between the Congress and proceedings manuscript publication; and increased online availability of either the table of contents or proceedings citations. Recent additions include online publication of full length manuscripts and two instances of full peer review evaluations of the proceedings manuscripts. These trends in proceedings publication are described within the course of significant events in the Circumpolar health movement.

Conclusions: There has been a trend toward more rapid dissemination of scientific content, more analytic documentation of epidemiologic study design, and a trend toward wider dissemination of scientific content through the Internet. Significant progress in each of those areas is still possible and desirable.

Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to give the reader some idea of life in Siberia and Alaska during the creation of our first medical exchanges during the most difficult of political times.

Study design: Various projects were designed using National Institutes of Health (NIH) criteria for our medical exchange.

Methods: As we took these first steps between the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA, the general areas of our first studies were: (1) Circadian Rhythm and Work-Related Injuries in the North; (2) Alcohol and its Abuse with Treatment Methodologies; (3) Public Health Administration and Design in the Far East and Alaska; (4) Cystic Echinococcosis in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic; (5) Viral Hepatitis in the Arctic; (6) Cardiology; (7) Nutrition; and (8) Diabetes Prevention.

Results: A film made by the University of Alaska which was shown on PBS' "Breaking the Ice: The Alaska-Siberia Medical Research Program"; various papers and books published on both sides; and a major contribution made to world peace through the medical workers on both sides of the Bering Sea.

Conclusion: This major effort for peace showed the world how the peoples of Siberia and Alaska could come together and work for world peace through joint collaborations. Native people were reunited after years of separation, new avenues were created in anthropology, biology and medicine, and, subsequently, the border was again opened between our peoples.

Southcentral Foundation (SCF) is an Alaska Native 501(c) (3) non-profit healthcare organization established in 1982 by the Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI), which is one of thirteen Alaska Native regional corporations created by Congress in 1971 under the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. CIRI established SCF to improve the health and social conditions of Alaska Native people, enhance culture, and empower individuals and families to take charge of their lives. SCF is totally customer-owned and managed by the tribal authority of CIRI. Under the federal Indian Self Determination Act of Public Law 93-638 and Section 325, SCF provides health and human services to approximately 45,000 residents within a geographical area of 107,413 square miles extending from the Canadian border on the east to the entire Aleutian Chain and Pribilof Islands on the west. SCF owns and manages primary care services, community services, behavioral health services, dental services, and residential treatment centers. Our funding sources are 45% Indian Health Service funding, 45% Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, and 10% grants, contracts and research funding. SCF has experienced dramatic growth over the past fifteen years: the workforce increased from fewer than 100 to about 1300 employees, and the operating budget has grown from $3 million to $118 million. While managing nearly two decades of exponential growth, SCF distinguished itself as one of the nation's leading care providers for Alaska Native and American Indian people, launching such innovations as the nation's first fetal alcohol syndrome prevention program and implementing healthcare industry best practices such as a fully-integrated primary care system and system-wide "open access". SCF has drastically changed the healthcare system from a slow bureaucratic system to a customer-responsive, customer-owned and customer-driven healthcare system.

Introduction: Alaska Native (AN) people include multiple, diverse ethnic groups whose ancestors occupied what is now the state of Alaska. Cancer incidence rates among Alaska Native women for breast, cervix, uterus and ovary are presented here. Current rates and trends over time are compared with U.S. White rates.

Objective: To describe cancer incidence patterns for cancer of the breast, cervix, uterus and ovary among Alaska Native women.

Methods: Cancer incidence data for Alaska Natives are from the Alaska Native Tumor Registry, in Anchorage, Alaska. Incidence rates for U.S. Whites are from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program.

Results: Breast and cervical cancer incidence rates among Alaska Natives are similar to U.S. White rates, whereas rates for cancer of the uterus and ovary are significantly less than those of U.S. Whites. Thirty-five year trends show increasing rates in breast cancer and decreasing rates of cervical cancer.

Conclusion: The burden of cancer among Alaska Native women for cancers unique to women is significant. Increasing breast cancer rates among Alaska Natives has greatly contributed to this burden.