Community-Based Participatory Research Partners

Besides the various communities that invite us to do health research with local individuals and families (commitments to confidentiality prevent us from identifying them), the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) is CANHR’s main community partner. The YKHC provides health services for the 53 villages in the Yukon Kuskokwim region and serves 22,000 Alaska Natives (ANs) primarily of Yup’ik ethnicity. The board of the corporation is elected by representatives from the respective subregions of the area and serves as our primary liaison with the village traditional councils and/or city governments.

Expanding beyond the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Because of the success of CANHR in establishing relationships with other research groups and tribal health corporations within the state, CANHR has agreements to plan and conduct research on genetics and prevention with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC), located in Anchorage, which has a large medical center and the largest number of epidemiologists within Alaska. Additionally, a CANHR investigator has initiated, upon the request of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), an R21 application for a pilot intervention project aimed at reducing cardiovascular disease in AN men. SEARHC is responsible for the health care of ANs in and around Juneau. These joint activities allow CANHR to serve as a statewide research resource and increase research opportunities.

Prior to CANHR I, biomedical research at UAF was largely unknown to Alaska tribal groups. In the spring of 2006, just four years after CANHR started, the ANTHC suggested that CANHR and the consortium form a joint working group to develop a collaborative framework for research on AN health disparities, focusing on chronic diseases. As a result, CANHR is now planning joint projects related to the chronic diseases and has been invited to do a genetics education workshop with their Board of Directors as a first step to planning genetics research on chronic diseases with the consortium. Our collaborative efforts enhance our joint capacity to compete successfully for biomedical research funding. Just as importantly, they show the high level of acceptance and respect within the AN biomedical research community that CANHR has gained in a relatively short time. Additionally, we have expanded our work by initiating NIH submissions with the SEARHC in Juneau for the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsmishian Tribal groups as a subawardee and are providing biostatistical support for a South Central Foundation (SCF) research project, Dr. Ruth Etzel, PI.

Non-university biomedical research in Alaska with which CANHR collaborates:
The Arctic Investigations Program (AIP) is a division of the National Center for Infectious Diseases (CDC) which is located on the AN Health Center campus in Anchorage. AIP is a descendant of the U.S. Public Health Service’s “Arctic Health Research Center” founded in 1948. The AIP stores specimens for many tribal health corporations and for the CANHR through agreements with the UAF IRB, the Tribal Human Studies and Corporate boards, and the CANHR PI.

The two major Alaska State Public Health laboratories that are part of the State Department of Health and Social Services, among other responsibilities, provide general diagnostic services based on serology, parasitology, bacteriology, and mycology (Anchorage) and based on virology (Fairbanks). Our proposed project on contaminants and nutrients in subsistence foods will work with the state lab.

The ANTHC and the SCF (a nonprofit organization formed under the authority of the Cook Inlet Region Native Corporation) have managed the statewide health services component of the AN health system since 1997. ANTHC has the Office of AN Health Research with which CANHR is collaborating on a variety of projects. ANTHC provides medical epidemiology resources for CANHR’s Epidemiology and Biostatistics Core. The SCF serves Alaska Natives in the Anchorage area and rural areas adjacent to Anchorage. The SEARHC serves Alaska Natives in Juneau, Sitka, and throughout southeast Alaska. They are two new research partners for CANHR investigators.