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- By Elyse Wild
IndigeFit Kids
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community announced its investment of $6 million over the next three years in a new initiative to increase health and fitness among Native youth across Minnesota. Dubbed “IndigeFit Kids,” it aims to fund a variety of projects and programs focused on physical fitness and wellness, commission research, raise public awareness, support efforts to Indigenize athletic programs, and more. The investment includes $1.5 million to KABOOM! —a national nonprofit organization working to end play inequity — to assess the adequacy of playspace in Native American communities. An additional $500,000 will be granted to the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health to conduct a planning study to prepare for a research initiative on holistic health among Native youth. Finally, IndigeFit Kids will partner with the Minnesota Vikings to expand sports teams for Native kids.
Direct Transfer Pathway
Tohono O’odham Community College has partnered with the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health to create a direct transfer pathway to U of A to earn a
Bachelor of Science in Public Health. Students can choose from one of seven-degree tracks: public health practice, global health, health promotion, One Health, environmental and occupational health, quantitative methods in public health, and health systems theory and practice. Located in Haivana Nakya, Ariz., in the Tohono O’odham Nation, the community college has around 1,200 enrolled students, 96% of whom are Native American.
Application Deadline Approaching
The National Indian Health Board (NIHB) is offering funding for Tribes and Tribal organizations to support projects related to Tribal climate health. Designed to build capacity with AI/AN Tribes to identify, assess, and take action to mitigate climate-related health threats, the funding will provide Tribes and/or Tribal organizations with an opportunity to conduct local work related to Tribal climate health. NIHB will fund up to two sub-awards to Tribes or Tribal organizations for up to $16,000 each. The project period will run from Feb. 1, 2025, to Aug. 31, 2025. Applications are due at 11:59 pm ET on Friday, Jan.24, 2025. Download the application here.
Suicide Rates Dropped
Suicide rates among Native Americans in New Mexico fell by 43% last year. That’s according to provisional data released Thursday by the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) Center for Health Protection. New Mexico is home to 23 federally recognized tribes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) have a suicide rate 91% higher than the general population. The drop marks a significant change from a decades-long steady rise in the state’s AI/AN suicide rate.
Worthy Reads
This week, we covered the fallout of a multi-billion dollar sober living scam in Arizona that targeted Native Americans under the guise of addiction care. For at least four years, thousands of Native Americans in Arizona and as far away as Montana reported being kidnapped – forced into unmarked SUVs and vans under false pretenses — given alcohol and drugs such as fentanyl or methamphetamine, subjected to fraudulent mental health services, held prisoner, and eventually ejected onto the street or dropped off in remote rural areas with no means of transportation. Fraudulent sober living home operators behind the scam billed the state’s Medicaid Agency in excess of $1,000 per pay per patient.
Advocate Reva Stewart (Dine) spoke with Native News Online about alerting state and tribal leaders to the scam two years before the state cracked down on the fraudulent operators. Stewart hopes that a new lawsuit against the state for failing to act despite having knowledge of the scheme as far back as 2019 will bring long-awaited accountability to thousands of affected families.
“I want them [the state] to say, ‘We did this and we messed up, yeah, and we want to apologize to every single person that was affected by this.’ That’s what I want for every single person who has been hurt by this,” Stewart said.
More Stories Like This
Q&A: Chelsea Curtis (Diné) on Creating Arizona’s First MMIWGTT DatabaseWashington’s American Indian Health Commission Asks State to Cover Traditional Healing
‘They are targeting our people’ | Arizona Ignored Warnings as Fake Sober Living Homes Preyed on Native Americans
Health Equity Round-Up (January 12, 2024)
