Members of tribal communities and health researchers meet in Sioux Falls this week. It’s an annual summit for the Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health. The meetings involve people from South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.
More than 350 people attend the summit on Indian Health in Sioux Falls. Leaders say the goal is to plan together to educate and report on ongoing projects. Doctor Amy Elliot directs Sanford’s Center for Health Outcomes and Research. She says a new grant worth more than 13-million dollars helps establish collaboration to research Indian health challenges.
"There is American Indian health culture, but then there’s also research culture, and we’ve got some talks to come together more effectively," Elliot says.
Elliot says specific projects are working through government approval, but the summit is a launching of relationships.
Gene Thin Elk is a Lakota man originally from Rosebud. His presentation at the health summit includes ways Indian communities can retain sovereignty while embracing current health research.
"Everybody needs to be involved, so that we can have compliance, we can quality assurance, we can have all of those things that are in place so that we can all work together," Thin Elk says. "Basically, when you sift through everything, when you boil it all down, we are trying to make a better way for our future generations, seven generations, so that what we do today may be something that will benefit the generations coming."
Thin Elk says the Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health summit is the start of many talks to determine roles organization play as people work to improve Native American health outcomes.