This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This project is a dissertation research project that will investigate the social, cultural, and health effects of rural Alaskan health practitioners' practice of transporting "high risk" pregnancy women into urban centers for child birth. The researcher will be collaborating with women in Northwest Alaska, using ethnographic methods, including case studies and videography to examine the social and economic aspects of this practice. The investigator hopes that the research will provide a more holistic, culturally inclusive analysis of rural child birthing practices and the policies of health practitioners toward Alaska Native women.
