Social Medicine in Practice: Realizing the American Indian and Alaska Native Right to Health

摘要

American Indians and Alaska Natives have long held a state-conferred right to health, yet Indigenouscommunities across the United States continue to experience significant health and health caredisparities. In this paper we posit two contributing factors: socialization for scarcity in tribal healthcare, and a slowness among health workers and allied health and social scientists to make explicit andconvincing linkages between social determinants of health and human rights. We then summarizeone attempt to align tribal health care delivery in the Alaskan Arctic with a rights-based approach,highlighting both the role of social and structural determinants as causes of health disparities and therole of social and structural interventions in local efforts to chart a future of equal health for our home.