{"id":17085,"date":"2020-04-08T09:06:19","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T09:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/?p=17085"},"modified":"2023-06-08T18:27:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:27:02","slug":"alumni-abigail-echo-hawk-indigenous-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2020\/04\/08\/alumni-abigail-echo-hawk-indigenous-public-health","title":{"rendered":"Better Native American health through research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Abigail
Abigail Echo-Hawk. Courtesy photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Douglas Esser
\nAs the chief research officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board, Abigail Echo-Hawk directs data collection and evaluation for the Urban Indian Health Institute<\/a>. 足彩app哪个是正规的 institute is one of 12 tribal epidemiology centers in the nation and the only one with a national scope, working across a network of 62 urban Indian health programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her position, Echo-Hawk navigates an ocean of data. But back when she was a graduate student at the University of Washington Bothell, she felt like statistics was her weakest course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the support of fellow students and Cinnamon Hillyard, then her professor and now the interim associate vice chancellor for undergraduate learning, however, \u201cstats\u201d turned into a strength. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt gave me the confidence to be in the job I\u2019m in now where I\u2019m overseeing an epidemiology center focused on creating meaningful data statistics for American Indians and Alaska Natives,\u201d Echo-Hawk said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A career in public health <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Echo-Hawk graduated in 2007 with a degree in American & Ethnic Studies and a minor in Human Rights from UW Bothell\u2019s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences<\/a>. She added a Master of Arts in Policy Studies in 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past three years, she\u2019s directed the health board\u2019s research institute and gained national recognition, especially for drawing attention to sexual violence and to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的 足彩app哪个是正规的 pandemic has intensified her work as part of the leadership for the board\u2019s clinic in Seattle\u2019s International District. It serves anyone who walks through the door \u2014 about 6,000 people a year \u2014 but the majority are American Indians and Alaska Natives, for whom it is culturally attuned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the public health response, the institute created 足彩app哪个是正规的 fact sheets for Native American communities, hosted webinars on harm reduction for the Native homeless population and is conducting nationwide epidemiological surveillance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnywhere there\u2019s a gap,\u201d Echo-Hawk said, \u201cwe\u2019re filling it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From patient to policymaker <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was about 20 years ago, after moving from Alaska to Seattle, when Echo-Hawk first went to the health board clinic as a patient. \u201cIt\u2019s really exciting in a sense to come back home and serve the community that served me so well,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"UIHI<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the 50th year for the Seattle Indian Health Board and the 20th for its research division. As director of research, Echo-Hawk trains others how to conduct research with American Indians and Alaska Natives in urban settings where 71% live, according to census figures. She directs a staff of 39, more than five times as many as when she started in 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve really seen my resources and team grow as a result of going back to our traditional value systems around research, data and evaluation to make meaningful change around policy or programming,\u201d Echo-Hawk said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的 institute, which is mostly funded by federal grants and federal partners, is training the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health and others on indigenous evaluation frameworks and how to implement them within urban tribal communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe work with the communities to determine what should be measured. That becomes the evaluation framework, the research protocols. 足彩app哪个是正规的n we work with them to collect that information and interpret it together,\u201d Echo-Hawk said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t make our own interpretations without feedback from the community. 足彩app哪个是正规的 community involvement is from the very beginning to the very end.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural fluency and respect <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One way the institute culturally adapts research to Native communities is to engage the elders and take them seriously. \u201cBecause they hold a cultural \u2014 and in some tribal communities a spiritual \u2014 space, their feedback is integral to any kind of effort that would be made.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"UIHI<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, the institute published the report \u201cOur Bodies, Our Stories: Sexual Violence Among Native Women in Seattle.\u201d Currently, Echo-Hawk is working with national organizations, gathering data from families who have missing or murdered women and girls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Echo-Hawk said she also has a current project with a large county law enforcement agency to create a tool kit that will change the way officers collect data on the race and ethnicity of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Someday, she hopes, the tool kit could be used nationally to ensure that law enforcement works with their Native communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Echo-Hawk started this kind of investigating as a student at UW Bothell where her capstone project looked at Native women and infant mortality in Seattle. Now, she\u2019s also a member of the King County Children and Youth Advisory Board, which oversees millions of dollars in spending from the 2015 Best Starts for Kids levy to improve the health and well-being of King County residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kindness and compassion <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Echo-Hawk has two tribal affiliations. She is an enrolled citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and she was born and raised in Alaska as a member of the upper Ahtna Athabascan people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a college student in Washington, she felt somewhat isolated but at the same time also found support from other students, staff and professors, such as Hillyard and Bruce Kochis. He was an IAS faculty member who helped launch the University of Washington Center for Human Rights and guided the Washington, D.C., Human Rights Seminar for more than a decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I found was kindness and compassion,\u201d Echo-Hawk said. In Kochis\u2019 class in particular, she said, \u201cI was really able to bring a voice and have it appreciated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的 community at UW Bothell places real value on student knowledge and perspectives, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really thinking about what are the interests of the students. What are our personal experiences? Where are we trying to make change in our own communities? And I really found in my undergraduate and graduate years, the professors were willing to work with you to make what you were doing meaningful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, when she visits the UW Bothell campus, Echo-Hawk said she doesn\u2019t feel so isolated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt fills me full of excitement to see so much diversity, where it didn\u2019t exist prior. I really see the efforts that UW Bothell has made to build that diversity,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a justice seeker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Echo-Hawk has received a number of awards, including the 2011 UW Bothell Distinguished Alumna Award. This year, she received a Woman of the Year Award at the 25th National Indian Women\u2019s Supporting Each Other luncheon in Washington, D.C., where she was introduced by Sen. Kamala Harris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Echo-Hawk was surprised to receive an award from Washington Secretary of Health John Wiesman, because she had been pressing the agency for equity in how it distributes money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was shocked to receive an award from an organization I had been actively challenging,\u201d Echo-Hawk said. \u201cSometimes in the work I do as an advocate I\u2019m more often seen as a nuisance. Folks like me are often framed as a troublemaker, instead of a justice seeker. I feel like he saw me as a justice seeker.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abigail Echo-Hawk (American Studies ’07, Master of Arts in Policy Studies ’09) directs data collection and evaluation for the Urban Indian Health Institute, a tribal epidemiology center with a national scope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_is_archived":false,"_archived_contact_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[209,202,252,200],"tags":[257],"school":[419],"class_list":["post-17085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-campus-news","category-population-health","category-profiles","tag-health","school-school-of-ias"],"acf":{"related_links":{"toggle_visibility":false,"link_1":null,"link_2":null,"link_3":null,"link_4":null,"link_5":null},"highlight_box":{"toggle_visibility":false,"title":"","content":"","button":null,"button_style":"angled-purple-button","button_screen_reader_text":""},"contact_type_1":{"toggle_visibility":true,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"contact_type_2":{"toggle_visibility":false,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"social_media":{"toggle_visibility":false,"facebook_url":"","instagram_url":"","linkedin_url":"","twitter_url":"","youtube_url":""},"blog_archive_sidebar_visibility":false},"yoast_head":"\nBetter Native American health through research - 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