The health of a tribe can be measured in the physical vitality of its people, but also in their spiritual and mental wellbeing. These issues and more are the topic of the 2019 Great Plains Symposium examining American Indian behavioral health.
"Wakanyéja: A Conference on American Indian Behavioral Health" will bring together tribal community members, respected elders, health advocates, academics, biomedical scientists, and tribal health representatives to create better understanding of community issues and work to address health disparities.
More than a dozen conference speakers will address these issues from multiple viewpoints and disciplines, including: physical, mental, cultural, and spiritual factors in behavioral health.
Speakers will address the relationship between historical trauma and behavioral health; spiritual resilience and the ceremonies, traditions and belief systems that have survived through the centuries that continue to sustain indigenous people; and how current policies and health services work or don’t work within these systems to address the relationship between trauma and behavioral health.
"We are very excited that many Native American scientists, physicians, elders, and community advocates, including representatives from the National Institutes of Health, a major supporter of this effort, will participate in this symposium," said Maurice Godfrey, Ph.D., a professor at the Munroe-Meyer Institute at UNMC, and conference co-organizer.
The conference starts with a panel discussion on April 23 on the introduction of alcohol to indigenous communities since the first contact with Europeans and the resulting substance use abuse. Panelists Frank LaMere, Nora Boesem, and Omar Abdul-Rahman, will describe efforts to address this issue on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The speakers on April 24 include:
- Ruby Gibson, ThD, Ojibwe/Oglala Sioux;
- Jennifer Giroux, M.D., MPH, Rosebud Sioux;
- Fay Givens, Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee;
- Joseph Marshall III, Rosebud Sioux;
- Kay McGowan, Ph.D., Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee;
- Magda Peck, ScD, adjunct professor of public health, UNMC;
- Charles Sitting Bull, Oglala Lakota;
- Lancer Stephens, Ph.D., Wichita/Muscogee (Creek);
- Larry Voegele, Standing Rock Sioux;
- Melissa Walls, Ph.D., Anishinaabe;
- Donald Warne, M.D., MPH, Oglala Sioux;
- Nora Boesem, founder of Roots to Wings;
- Omar Abdul-Rahman, M.D., director of genetic medicine at UNMC’s Munroe-Meyer Institute;
- Frank LaMere; Winnebago;
- David Wilson, Ph.D., Navajo; and
- Juliana Blome, Ph.D.
The conference is a collaboration between the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska Medical Center and will be held on the UNMC campus.
For more information visit: https://www.unl.edu/plains/2019-symposium
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