There are significant concerns about providing healthcare to Native American patients due to historical traumas and systemic inequities. These factors have culminated in significant health disparities. We'll take a quick look at two main components: historical trauma and systemic inequities.
Historical trauma impacts the lives of many Native Americans in the United States. Lingering trauma from the effects of settler colonialism, government-backed genocide, forced removals, boarding schools/forced children assimilation, environmental health threats, and the crisis surrounding missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) all can play a part of whether patients seek medical assistance when needed (Burns et al., 2024).
Systemic inequities also play a role in the health inequities faced by Native Americans in the United States. There's an implicit bias among many healthcare providers that Native American patients are stereotyped as noncompliant (Zestcott et al., 2021).
There has also been an issue surrounding medical experimentation that had been done on Native Americans, which has lead to mistrust of the medical community (Ehrenpreis & Ehrenpreis, 2022). Ehrenpreis & Ehrenpreis continue to describe how, even when Native Americans have access to health care, they may not have access outside of the general Indian Health Services facilities, which in turn negatively affects life expectancy, quality of life.
Since the founding of the United States, the US Government has found ways to force Native Americans off their historical homelands and move them to often remote, desolate areas—reservations. Nations that had previously benefited from hunter-gather societies were forced to attempt to cultivate land that wasn't meant to be cultivated (Gladstone, 2017). On top of issues sustaining agriculture, the poverty rate on many reservations in the US is nearly 25%; Crepelle (2023) outlines that part of the high poverty rate is due to a lack of a "formal, private sector" – which can be attributed to federal government " severely restricting tribal economic sovereignty." Crepelle goes on to talk about how housing quality is subpar, with many houses lacking access to safe water and there are often crowded living spaces.
We’ve broken the most common health inequities into different sections, focusing on dermatology, chronic health issues, infectious disease, parental health, and mental health. We also have specialized topics such as environmental health and traditional medicine. Use the subpages on the left to navigate through these topics. The articles, videos, and links below are great places to start to get an idea of many of the most common health inequities faced by Native American patients.
The following tabs contain links to advocacy groups, articles, books from our collection, and videos that provide an insight into some of the health inequities found in Native American communities. These typically look at things on a higher level, while the other sections of this guide will go more into details about specific health concerns.
Use the tabs to navigate between content types. For more detailed instruction, return to the instructions on the guide's home page.
