Grand Canyon Times

Agnes Attakai, MPA, grew up in two worlds. In Southern California, she and her five siblings enjoyed city life. In the summertime, the kids stayed with their grandparents on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, where they had no electricity or running water.

“I grew up going back and forth on Route 66,” said Attakai, who is Navajo and the director of the Circle of Indigenous Empowerment program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities.

No matter where the kids were, though, one thing remained the same: health care was tricky.

Attakai’s parents didn’t have health insurance, and her grandparents didn’t trust the area Indian Health Service clinic. Attakai can rattle off examples of modern-day failures in the complicated Indian Health Service system. Case in point: Her sister recently thought she was having a stroke, went to the closest Phoenix clinic and ended up being whisked away by ambulance to a specialty hospital. She was stuck with a hefty bill because she went outside her service network rather than her assigned clinic, which was six hours away.

“That is what happens to a lot of people in urban areas because we’re lost,” Attakai said. “We’re not part of the tribal system in our home communities.”

Stories of delayed diagnoses and treatments are common too, she said. But positive change is in the works for Arizonans, thanks to the American Indian Health Area Health Education Center (AIH-AHEC).

Launched in 2022, AIH-AHEC is just one of many improvements to come out of the annual Rural Health Conference, a meeting for rural health care providers and service organizations from around the state that’s coordinated by UArizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health’s Center for Rural Health.

The 50th annual Arizona Rural Health Conference, held June 4-5 in Flagstaff, Arizona, drew about 475 attendees. The conference aims to bring together various groups addressing unmet needs to create partnerships that improve health care for those in Arizona’s rural and underserved communities.

“It’s about being part of a larger voice that educates and informs policy for state and even federal deliberations around health policy,” said Dan Derksen, MD, director of the Center for Rural Health and associate vice president for Health Equity, Outreach and Interprofessional Activities at UArizona Health Sciences.

Derksen is also a senior advisor for UArizona Health Sciences’ Arizona Area Health Education Center Program. He considers AIH-AHEC one of the top accomplishments from the Rural Health Conference over its five decades.

“It’s a tangible result that shows progress being made to address these unmet needs,” Derksen said.

Attakai calls it a “game-changer.”

Congress created AHEC in 1971 to recruit, train and retain a healthcare workforce committed to helping underserved populations. The program uses academic medicine resources to address local community health needs by creating strong academic-community partnerships.

The new AIH-AHEC is Arizona's sixth regional center focusing exclusively on Native American health care systems and workforce. Native Americans have some of the highest rates of health disparities compared with other ethnic communities in the U.S., according to Indian Health Service data.

AIH-AHEC reaches out to young Native students to introduce them to healthcare careers with hopes they’ll serve their home communities.

“The biggest thing for us is getting Native American youth introduced to healthcare careers early and sharing with them many opportunities available,” said Jeff Axtell, MEd., director of AIH-AHEC at Arizona Advisory Council on Indian Health Care.

Another major boost is financial support offered by AIH-AHEC to help defray schooling costs—a significant barrier for Native American students. Attakai herself is an example; she pursued higher education despite challenges that kept her siblings from doing so.

Schooling wasn’t prioritized in Attakai’s family due to historical contexts like Native American boarding schools designed for vocational skills training away from families. Through federal urban relocation programs promising better lives off reservations into big cities like California where Attakai's parents raised their children under tight financial conditions—she remembers sending cassette tapes back-and-forth since her grandparents couldn’t read or write—Attakai dropped out during high school caring younger brothers post parental separation while working factory jobs until deciding pursuing further education excelling sciences eventually graduating high school before college enrolling thereafter ultimately engaging various roles within University such cancer education outreach recruiting future native professionals aiming return practice locally reflecting overall programmatic intentions encouraging educational pursuits followed returning respective home bases fostering continued communal contributions benefiting collectively shared societal well-being endeavors envisioned long-term sustainability outcomes targeted systematically aligned concerted efforts driving forward ongoing initiatives enhancing inclusively comprehensive public-oriented services delivery mechanisms embedded throughout encompassing holistic frameworks integral foundational principles underlying overarching mission goals objectives striving achieving progressive advancements desired meaningful impact anticipated

This article was originally published by University of Arizona Health Sciences Office of Communications