Grand Canyon Times

The University of Arizona's (UA) Area Health Education Center Program has teamed up with the Arizona Advisory Council on Indian Health Care to improve the availability of quality health care for Arizona’s American Indian tribes and workforce.

The Advisory Council on Indian Health Care was selected by the Arizona Area Health Education Center (AzAHEC) Program at UA to develop the new center to address the American Indian health system and workforce through profession education initiatives and by expanding access for tribal communities, a news release from EurekAlert said this week.

Leila Barraza, director of the AzAHEC Program and associate professor of Community, Environment and Policy at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, noted that access to adequate health care is a serious problem for Native Americans in Arizona.

“Tribes in Arizona experience a serious shortage of health care professionals compared to other regions in the state,” Barraza said in the release. "The new American Indian Health Regional Center can begin to alleviate some of these shortages by working closely with our tribal health systems and enhancing their current workforce strategies.”

The center aims to build a better health care workforce by providing "community-based health professions rotations" through supporting health workers and promoting careers in the health care field for K-12 students, the release said.

“This center will host myriad programs that ensure children and youth are exposed to health care professions from an early age and feel empowered to pursue these professions, equipped with knowledge and cultural competencies critical to directly impact the health of their own communities,” Kim Russell, director of the Arizona Advisory Council on Indian Health Care, said in the release. “It will be uniquely positioned to address disparities in concert with the five other AHEC Regional Centers in Arizona, the University of Arizona and the AzAHEC Program leaders and resources across all health professions.”

The AIH-AHEC Regional Center also intends to train and coach people to become health care workers in their communities by using a “grow your own” strategy to address the need for quality health care.

“The AIH-AHEC Regional Center will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and align perfectly with the AHEC mission that has been an integral part of the university and Arizona communities for nearly 40 years,” said Dr. Dan Derksen, associate vice president of Health Equity, Outreach and Interprofessional Activities for UArizona Health Sciences; AzAHEC Program senior advisor and principal investigator; and director of the Center for Rural Health in the Zuckerman College of Public Health.

So far, there are 56 AHEC programs and 236 regional centers in 47 states.