CANHR Research
Projects
CANHR
currently supports four research projects addressing: cultural understanding of health; dietary biomarkers; stress and coping; and nutritients and contamination in subsistence foods. All projects are being developed jointly with the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and are based in part on data collected from CANHR's first five years.
Funding
for this Center requires each investigator to submit a major proposal
to NIH within three years in order to develop their research more
deeply. Once a current researcher has been successful in receiving
such funding, he/she is removed from CANHR funding and a new researcher
is supported. As new research projects investigate obesity, diabetes,
or cardiovascular disease, CANHR will continue to collaborate with
YKHC, as well as with other Alaska Native partners, to define needs
and develop research projects.
Past research projects focused on obesity and
its relationship to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The Projects
Yup’ik Perceptions
of Body Weight
and Diabetes:
Cultural Pathways
to Prevention
Elaine Drew, PhD,
Project Principal Investigator
The purpose of this project is to conduct vital preliminary research to understand Yup’ik beliefs about body weight and diabetes. Despite Indian Health Service guidelines for monitoring diabetes risk among Alaska Natives, current prevention efforts are deficient in lay perspectives about risk and diabetes. This project will move researchers toward intervention and prevention planning tailored to the context of rural Alaska and the values of Yup’ik peoples.
Contaminants
and Nutrients
in Alaskan
Subsistence Foods:
Striking a Balance
Todd O’Hara, DVM, PhD, Project Principal
Investigator
This project proposes to measure nutrients and environmental contaminants of specific subsistence foods. By addressing both nutrients and contaminants in fresh (recently killed) and processed foods (e.g., smoked, boiled) we can assess risks and benefits in a more balanced manner. We will focus on a fish species and two mammalian species (at least one should be marine), as selected by community members.
Yup’ik Experiences of Stress and Coping:
Intervention via Cultural Understanding
John Gonzalez, PhD, Project Principal Investigator
Yup’ik communities have voiced widespread concern about the prevalence of stress and traumatic life events and their negative impact on health. This project will develop a way of assessing stress and trauma in a Yup’ik cultural context and more importantly how Yup’ik people find healthy ways of coping with stress and trauma. The goal is to use the information gathered to work with the communities in developing a stress management program that can be used by other communities to help people manage their stress in culturally appropriate ways.
Developing a Novel Set of Diet Pattern
Biomarkers
Based on Stable Isotope Ratios
Diane O’Brien, PhD, Project Principal Investigator
Rosemarie Plaetke, PhD, Co-Investigator
Bret Luick, PhD, Co-Investigator
CANHR researchers seek to understand how a subsistence diet either protects or prediposes Yup’ik people to disease. To do this we need to easily and accurately measure how much subsistence foods people eat. This project seeks to develop a new method to measure subsistence intake by matching natural isotopic signatures in blood or hair samples with those in foods. Isotopes could provide practical biomarkers of diet pattern that are quick, inexpensive to measure and don’t rely on memory and lengthy interviews.
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