Harvard Joins Native American Health Project

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Harvard Joins Native American Health Project

Harvard Joins Native American Health Project
KSG institute to lead collaboration with federal agency
Published On Thursday, March 02, 2006 3:36 AM
Crimson Staff Writer www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511750
<http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511750> The University
unveiled a new partnership with the federal government's Indian
Health Service (IHS) last week that echoes the goal to educate
"English and Indian youth" outlined in Harvard's 1650
charter.

IHS is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Provost Steven E. Hyman and Charles W. Grim, assistant surgeon general
and director of IHS, signed a memorandum of understanding on Feb. 21
announcing that they will be collaborating on an effort to improve the
health of the country's Native American population.

"Improving our understanding of health disparities between Native
Americans and non-Native communities in the U.S. is one of the terribly
pressing needs in the fields of healthcare and health policy," Hyman
said in a statement last week. "Harvard and IHS together have the
capacity to study this problem and to effect positive change."

The partnership will be led at Harvard's end by the Harvard
University Native American Program (HUNAP), an institute in the Kennedy
Schoool of Government.

Carmen D. Lopez, executive director of HUNAP, and Dennis Norman, the
faculty chair of HUNAP's Native Health Program, said in a conference
call yesterday that the partnership is designed "to bring the
brainpower of Harvard to benefit Native people."

Leo J. Nolan, a senior policy analyst at IHS, said Tuesday that over the
past 50 years, IHS has been very successful at combatting infectious
disease in the Native American community, but that chronic
illness—health problems related to lifestyle and
behavior—remains a problem.

"We need to enlist support—both in terms of resources, talent,
and ideas—from other entities that have the competency to help
us," Nolan said.

Norman and Lopez said that one of the first steps they have taken is to
ask HUNAP's Faculty Advisory Board, comprised of professors from
almost all of the University's schools, to lend its expertise, on
topics ranging from health to business, to IHS.

Norman added that another early project involves creating mid-career
education opportunities for IHS officers "to get the skills they
need in public health or health policy."

He also said that a fellowship focusing on Native American health issues
at Massachusetts General Hospital is in the works.

Nolan voiced strong support for the plans, and said that IHS hoped the
University would also work to increase the number of Native American
students at Harvard Medical School.

"We need more Indians going into health professions," Nolan
said. "We would like to see more opportunities for young Indian
medical students to go to Harvard and get the great training Harvard
provides."

Lopez said that HUNAP emphasizes respectful interactions with Native
Americans and will get input from tribes on its initiatives.

"This is not Harvard charging into Indian country and telling them
what they need to do," Lopez said. "It's a partnership.
HUNAP is at the table representing Harvard, IHS is a government agency,
and the third party we're bringing to the table is tribal
leaders."

And Norman said that he hoped the collaboration would be a "two-way
street."

"These kinds of partnerships teach medicine an awful lot about how
to be effective," Norman said.