45 Results Found

Landfill contaminants pose significant risks to environmental and human health, particularly in rural Alaska. These communities are predominantly Alaska Native and face unique challenges in solid waste management due to geography, climate, and limite...

This paper describes Alaska Native youth-identified community strengths that support young people’s well-being. Youth from three rural Alaska communities were engaged by the research team in digital storytelling and photovoice to explore their...

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities experienced disproportionate COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, particularly in rural areas with limited public health infrastructure. This study examined primary COVID-19 information sources among...

The Arctic presents various challenges for a transition to electric vehicles compared to other regions of the world, including environmental conditions such as colder temperatures, differences in infrastructure, and cultural and economic factors. For...

Introduction: Indigenous peoples have documented their culture’s history in oral stories, revealing lessons about holistic relationships fostering perseverance. Despite vast differences in time, relationships and stories are equally important t...

In western North America, the carbon-rich boreal forest is experiencing warmer temperatures, drier conditions and larger and more frequent wildfires. However, the fire regime is also affected by direct human activities through suppression, ignition,...

Alaska Native and American Indian children have among the highest prevalence of obesity in the United States. Canadian Aboriginal populations including First Nations also have high rates of obesity but obesity rates among children are noticeably lowe...

Background: Suicide remains a leading cause of death in the United States, with more than 49,000 fatalities in 2023. Rural counties consistently face higher suicide mortality rates than urban areas, reflecting deep-seated mental health inequities. Me...

The Alaska Tribal Health System is working to increase colorectal cancer (CRC) screening among Alaska Native people, who experience the highest CRC rates in the world. This study examined CRC screening provider- and system-level barriers and facilita...

The future of marine sustainability depends on public understanding and trust in the policy recommendations that emerge from scientific research. For common pool marine resource decisions made by the people who depend on these resources for their foo...

Buildings are responsible for a large portion of global greenhouse gas emissions. While energy efficiency features can significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions during a building’s operational stage, extra materials and processes associ...

Every spring, riverine communities throughout the Arctic face flood risk. As the river ice begins to thaw and break up, ice jams—accumulation of chunks and sheets of ice in the river channel, force melt water and ice floes to back up for dozens of ki...

Physical activity (PA), sleep, and weight are important factors for youth health. However, data about these factors are unknown in youth living in isolated Alaska Native communities. This study aims to assess PA, sleep, height and weight in elementar...

By the terms set by international agreements for the conservation of Yukon River salmon, 2009 was a management success. It was a devastating year for many of the Alaska Native communities along the Yukon River, however, especially in up-river communi...

Perennial snowfields in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (GAAR) in the central Brooks Range of Alaska are a critical component of the cryosphere. They serve as habitat for an array of wildlife, including caribou, a species that is cruci...

The Alaska Tribal Health System is increasing colorectal cancer (CRC) screening among Alaska Native (AN) peoples, who experience the highest CRC rate in the world. Through a clinical trial (NCT04336397), AN people living in rural/remote Alaska were o...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alaska communities faced an extremely challenging situation given their socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic characteristics, as well as issues related to remoteness and colonial legacy. This paper seeks to advance t...

Ongoing revitalization of the >5000-year-old tradition of using trees for vital culture and heritage activities including carving and weaving affirms Alaska Native resilience. However, support for these sustained cultural practices is complicated...

Over the past decade Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS, aka “drones”) have become pervasive, touching virtually all aspects of our world. While UAS offer great opportunity to better our lives and strengthen economies, at the same time these...

Aleutian Islands and Alaska Peninsula residents have selectively introduced land mammals to their primarily marine based economy over the past two centuries. This paper describes these many introductions, contexts, and the longer term roles of these...

One in every twenty-five persons in America is a racial/ethnic minority who lives in a rural area. Our objective was to summarize how racism and, subsequently, the social determinants of health disproportionately affect rural racial/ethnic minority p...

Background: Hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) is a severe complication of liver cirrhosis, marked by rapid renal function decline and poor prognosis. Although clinical predictors of HRS outcomes have been extensively studied, less is known about how demogra...

Purpose: Because of shared mechanisms such as decreased access to health care, rurality and poverty may act synergistically to decrease colorectal cancer (CRC) survival. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of SEER data (22 registrie...

Purpose: Oral health disparities related to access persist for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities compared to the general population, especially in rural areas of the United States. The objective of this study was to better understand...

Substantial gaps remain in the evidence base for prenatal tobacco use interventions among Indigenous women. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT), the Healthy Pregnancies Project evaluated a community-level intervention for Alaska Native...

Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are cell membrane-bound ion channels that are widely distributed in the central nervous system. The α4β2 subtype of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor plays an important role in modulating...

Civic engagement interventions aimed at improving food and physical activity environments hold promise in addressing rural health disparities, but ensuring feasible and sustained dissemination remains a challenge. The present study aimed to evaluate...

Times of crisis make evident the need to critically re-examine the foundational values that shape the theory and practice of public administration. In this context, institutional kindness has emerged as an increasingly important concept across a rang...

Power system models of electric systems are crucial in system planning for operations, economics, and expansion analyses. However, as these models contain critical infrastructure data, they are not publicly available. This poses challenges in future...

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and substance use disorder (SUD) frequently co-occur due to shared risk factors and a potentially bidirectional relationship. However, epidemiological patterns in rural populations remain understudied despite...

The value of disaggregating non-metropolitan and metropolitan area deaths in illustrating place-based health effects is evident. However, how place interacts with characteristics such as race/ethnicity has been less firmly established. This study com...

Within the United States, the Southwest USA deserts show the largest temperature changes (1901–2010) besides Alaska, according to the most recent USA National Climate Assessment report. The report does not discuss urban effects vs. regional eff...

Household harvesting of wild fish and game contributes to food security in indigenous communities across the Arctic, and in some regions plays an important role in cultural identity of indigenous peoples. The degree to which the state regulates harve...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced K–12 school closures in spring 2020 to protect the well-being of society. The unplanned and unprecedented disruption to education changed the work of many teachers suddenly, and in many aspects. This case study exam...

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the top 10 cancers in the United States. This study assessed RCC health disparities in American Indians/Alaska Natives (AIs/ANs) and Hispanic Americans (HAs) focusing on advanced-stage and mortality. RCC patients’...

Mpox is a rare but potentially serious vaccine-preventable disease. The 2022 United States outbreak disproportionately impacted gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, people living with HIV, and people of transgender experience. Early va...

Electricity in rural Alaska is provided by more than 200 standalone microgrid systems powered predominantly by diesel generators. Incorporating renewable energy generation and storage to these systems can reduce their reliance on costly imported fuel...

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a major cause of preventable liver-related mortality in the United States despite highly effective direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). Contemporary assessment of mortality trends and disparities is essential f...

Countries across the world aspire towards climate resilient sustainable development. The interacting processes of climate change, land change, and unprecedented social and technological change pose significant obstacles to these aspirations. The pace...

Background: Respiratory failure (RF) is a frequently fatal complication of chronic liver disease (CLD), yet population-level data on RF-related mortality trends among adults with CLD are lacking. This study characterized temporal trends and demograph...

Background/Objectives: This systematic review addresses the disproportionate impact of the opioid epidemic on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations by examining the socio-ecological and social network factors that influence opioid use...

Natural language processing (NLP) and named entity recognition (NER) techniques are applied to collections of newspaper articles from four cities in the U.S. Southwest. The results are used to generate a network of water management institutions that...

Background: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major cause of mortality, and survival depends heavily on rapid defibrillation. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) can significantly improve outcomes when used before emergency medical services (E...

The lack of literature on Indigenous conceptions of health and the social determinants of health (SDH) for US Indigenous communities limits available information for Indigenous nations as they set policy and allocate resources to improve the health o...

The dolphins Inia geoffrensis—boto and Sotalia fluviatilis—tucuxi are threatened cetaceans inhabiting river ecosystems in South America; population numbers are still lacking for many areas. This paper provides density and abundance estimations of bot...