Because of very rapid cultural change over the past two generations, the Navajo Nation simultaneously exhibits many public health and environmental problems that are typical of """"""""third World"""""""" regions, but also increasing prominence of problems that are typical of developed industrialized regions. As the sole institution of higher education of the Navajo Nation, Navajo Community College is uniquely situated to provide technical expertise toward addressing these problems and toward developing indigenous talent among Navajo college students in the resolution of those problems. The MBRS program at this College has continually focused faculty and student research activities toward pressing public health and environmental health concerns facing the Navajo Nation. This focus continues to be paramount in our plans for continued research. Both the diabetes project and the cardiovascular project provide training in conducting structured interviews, data collection procedures, and epidemiology. In addition, the diabetes project provides practical training in medical anthropology, and the cardiovascular project provides extensive training and experience in clinical skills pertaining to assessment of several physiological functions. Students researching these projects will typically be majoring in a health-related field; our experience has been that their responses to a broadening of health interests to include biomedical research has been uniformly enthusiastic concerns. Through this project, we recruit physical sciences majors into applied biomedical research in which they develop technical skills relevant to environmental public health. All students research is done alongside doctoral faculty at the College, on a highly-interactive basis. Rewarding exposure to the research process, strong and peer bonding, and high motivation to continue in biomedical degree programs all attest to the effectiveness of our Navajo-focused approach.
