American Indian

Asthma

• American Indian/Alaska Native adults are slightly less likely to have asthma than non-Hispanic Whites
• The death rate from asthma for American Indian/Alaska Native adults in 2003 was 80% higher than for non-Hispanic Whites.
• American Indian/Alaska Native children had a 30% higher rate of asthma occurrence in 2007.
• Data on asthma conditions for American Indian/Alaska Natives is limited.

At a glance – Diagnosed:

Source:  CDC 2009. Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Adults: 2007. Table 4.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_240.pdf[PDF |8.43MB]

Read More

Diabetes

About 16 million Americans have diabetes and about a third don't know they have the disease. But American Indians, on average, are more likely to contract diabetes than any other ethnic group in the United States.

A 1998 Centers for Disease Control report on the prevalence of diabetes in people age 20 and older, showed 9 percent of American Indians and Alaska natives have diabetes, a rate that is nearly three times higher than non-Hispanic whites. Half the Pima Indians in Arizona have diabetes, for example.

Citing statistics from Indian Health Services, Dr. Christopher Sorli, medical director of the Diabetes Management Center at The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, said 30 to 40 percent of the Mashantucket Pequots' 650 members have diabetes, and about 10 percent of the Mohegans' 1,450 members have the disease. The Mohegans operate Mohegan Sun.

The problem may be even more widespread.

"Most physicians would tell you there is underreporting by American Indians with diabetes," said Sara Trachten, executive director of the New Haven chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a fund-raising organization that covers southern Connecticut.

The issue of diabetic care for American Indians has become more relevant as more move into the region.

Read More

Cardiovascular

With low rates of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease as recently as 40 years ago, the rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in American Indians and Alaska Natives were exceedingly low. Despite recent large-scale efforts to eliminate health disparities in ethnic and minority populations, the impact among American Indian and Alaska Natives to date has been relatively limited. Indeed, over the past several decades the incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors has risen significantly, including the development of an epidemic of diabetes.

Evidence suggests that these higher rates of cardiovascular risk factors, including tobacco abuse, diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels, may be placing an inordinate burden of cardiovascular disease on the American Indian and Alaska Native population. The rates of heart disease and stroke among American Indians and Alaska Natives are now higher than in the general U.S. population as well as in U.S. whites. Recent evaluations suggest that these rates are also higher than among other ethnic or racial populations in the United States. Additionally, American Indians and Alaska Natives have been found to have a substantially higher proportion of premature death from heart disease when compared with other ethnic and racial populations.

A number of recent prevention initiatives and focused clinical efforts are making promising strides toward reduced disparities in cardiovascular health with primordial, primary, and secondary cardiovascular prevention efforts along with enhanced early identification and therapeutic intervention for more favorable cardiovascular outcomes in the future.

Read More

Tuberculosis

Paleopathologic findings provide strong evidence for the existence of tuberculosis in Andean populations of pre-Columbian America. Indirect evidence is available also to suggest its possible endemicity among some American Indian tribes who lived within the present-day contiguous United States before the arrival of Europeans. The available data suggest that tuberculosis became a major health problem in some tribes with increased population density and cultural changes after increased contact with European civilization, paralleling the deterioration in living conditions after relocation of the tribes to reservations. By 1900, tuberculosis had become one of the most serious health problems among North American Indians. Tuberculosis control was hampered by the lack of a specific treatment, and only the advent of specific chemotherapy in an ambulatory setting brought a breakthrough. Mortality, morbidity, and risk of infection have all sharply decreased over the past three decades. However, tuberculosis incidence rates among American Indians remain well above rates in the white population. An intensified effort to identify those with tuberculosis and those at risk of tuberculosis as well as to develop compliance-enhancing strategies with treatment regimens will be necessary to eliminate tuberculosis from Indian reservations.

Read More