Alaska Natives constitute an underserved population characterized by significant health disparities (Alaska Department of Heath & Social Services [DHSS], 2002). The University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Alaska Native Health Research and the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation have joined together to design, plan, and implement a Community Based Participatory Research Project (CBPR) that has the following aims:
Aim 1 : To determine the highest priority behavioral health need in a preventative intervention in the largest Alaska Native cultural group, the Yup'ik of southwestern Alaska, through a CBPR process lead by a group of Yup'ik leaders who will constitute the Yup'ik Research Coordinating Council (YRCC).
Aim 2 : To develop a manual of interventions appropriate to a multilevel and multifactorial culturally based intervention procedure at the community, family, and individual levels.
Aim 3 : To pilot test a universal, selective, or combined preventative intervention model for the behavioral health need identified in Aim 1.
Aim 4 : To design a five year project for a randomized community based prevention trial to compete for the next round of funding. The process involves a partnership led by a Yup'ik Research Coordinating Council in which university researchers and community partners become co-researchers. Behavioral health factors are leading cause of deaths among Alaska Natives. The risk factors for chronic disease, suicide, homicide, family violence, and cancer all have significant behavioral factors. The literature provides clear evidence that there are disparities in the behavioral health of Alaska Natives that clearly represent a health crisis similar to that experienced by other rural minority groups. In each context, the groups are experiencing significant acculturation pressure. This provides a uniquely appropriate context for health promotion and prevention where there are remote and isolated communities with underserved minority populations experiencing high rates of health disorders and rapid change, but also exhibiting a strong existing traditions and elements of social, economic and geographic continuity (Chandler & LaLonde, 1998). The rural, frontier nature of this context provides a natural laboratory in which the science can be conducted. The knowledge acquired can contribute to the designing of prevention projects for small, remote, rural contexts; small neighborhoods in the U.S., and internationally within the developing world and circumpolar north. ? ?
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