Scholarly Work - Indigenous Research Initiative
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/15852
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Item Challenges and Opportunities for Tribal Waters: Addressing Disparities in Safe Public Drinking Water on the Crow Reservation in Montana, US(2018-03) Doyle, John T.; Kindness, L.; Real Bird, James; Eggers, Margaret J.; Camper, Anne K.Disparities in access to safe public drinking water are increasingly being recognized as contributing to health disparities and environmental injustice for vulnerable communities in the United States. As the Co-Directors of the Apsaálooke Water and Wastewater Authority (AWWWA) for the Crow Tribe, with our academic partners, we present here the multiple and complex challenges we have addressed in improving and maintaining tribal water and wastewater infrastructure, including the identification of diverse funding sources for infrastructure construction, the need for many kinds of specialized expertise and long-term stability of project personnel, ratepayer difficulty in paying for services, an ongoing legacy of inadequate infrastructure planning, and lack of water quality research capacity. As a tribal entity, the AWWWA faces additional challenges, including the complex jurisdictional issues affecting all phases of our work, lack of authority to create water districts, and additional legal and regulatory gaps—especially with regards to environmental protection. Despite these obstacles, the AWWWA and Crow Tribe have successfully upgraded much of the local water and wastewater infrastructure. We find that ensuring safe public drinking water for tribal and other disadvantaged U.S. communities will require comprehensive, community-engaged approaches across a broad range of stakeholders to successfully address these complex legal, regulatory, policy, community capacity, and financial challenges.Item Community Engaged Cumulative Risk Assessment of Exposure to Inorganic Well Water Contaminants, Crow Reservation, Montana(2018-01) Eggers, Margaret J.; Doyle, John T.; Lefthand, M. J.; Young, Sara L.; Moore-Nall, Anita L.; Kindness, L.; Medicine, R. O.; Ford, Tim E.; Dietrich, E.; Parker, Albert E.; Hoover, J. H.; Camper, Anne K.An estimated 11 million people in the US have home wells with unsafe levels of hazardous metals and nitrate. The national scope of the health risk from consuming this water has not been assessed as home wells are largely unregulated and data on well water treatment and consumption are lacking. Here, we assessed health risks from consumption of contaminated well water on the Crow Reservation by conducting a community-engaged, cumulative risk assessment. Well water testing, surveys and interviews were used to collect data on contaminant concentrations, water treatment methods, well water consumption, and well and septic system protection and maintenance practices. Additive Hazard Index calculations show that the water in more than 39% of wells is unsafe due to uranium, manganese, nitrate, zinc and/or arsenic. Most families’ financial resources are limited, and 95% of participants do not employ water treatment technologies. Despite widespread high total dissolved solids, poor taste and odor, 80% of families consume their well water. Lack of environmental health literacy about well water safety, pre-existing health conditions and limited environmental enforcement also contribute to vulnerability. Ensuring access to safe drinking water and providing accompanying education are urgent public health priorities for Crow and other rural US families with low environmental health literacy and limited financial resources.Item Applying indigenous CBPR principles to partnership development in health disparities research(2011-07) Christopher, S.; Saha, R.; Lachapelle, Paul; Jennings, D.; Colclough, Y.; Cooper, C.; Cummins, C.; Eggers, Margaret J.; FourStar, Kris; Harris, K.; Kuntz, Sandra W.; LaFromboise, V.; LaVeaux, Deb; McDonald, T.; Real Bird, James; Rink, Elizabeth; Webster, C.This case study of community and university research partnerships utilizes previously developed principles for conducting research in the context of Native American communities to consider how partners understand and apply the principles in developing community-based participatory research partnerships to reduce health disparities. The 7 partnership projects are coordinated through a National Institutes of Health–funded center and involve a variety of tribal members, including both health care professionals and lay persons and native and nonnative university researchers. This article provides detailed examples of how these principles are applied to the projects and discusses the overarching and interrelated emergent themes of sharing power and building trust.