Occupational and Environmental Exposures Among Alaska Native and American Indian People Living in Alaska and the Southwest United States

Overview

Journal J Environ Health

Specialty Environmental Health

Date 2012 May 18

PMID 22590848

Citations 3

Authors

Diana Redwood

Anne P Lanier

Michael Brubaker

Laurie Orell

Lillian Tom-Orme

Carmen George

Sandra Edwards

Martha Slattery

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Most occupational and environmental research describes associations between specific occupational and environmental hazards and health outcomes, with little information available on population-level exposure, especially among unique subpopulations. The authors describe the prevalence of self-reported lifetime exposure to nine occupational and environmental hazards among 11,326 American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults enrolled in the Education and Research Towards Health (EARTH) Study in the Southwest U.S. and Alaska. The top three hazards experienced by AI/AN people in Alaska were petroleum products, military chemicals, and asbestos. The top three hazards experienced by AI/AN living in the Southwest U.S. were pesticides, petroleum, and welding/silversmithing. The study described here found that male sex, lower educational attainment, AI/AN language use, and living in the Southwest U.S. (vs. Alaska) were all associated with an increased likelihood of hazard exposure. The authors' study provides baseline data to facilitate future exposure-response analyses. Future studies should measure dose and duration as well as environmental hazards that occur in community settings.

Citing Articles

A review of occupational safety and health research for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Wingate K, Dalsey E, Scott D J Safety Res. 2023; 84:204-211.

PMID: 36868648 PMC: 10044489. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsr.2022.10.020.

Chronic respiratory disease disparity between American Indian/Alaska Native and white populations, 2011-2018.

Laffey K, Nelson A, Laffey M, Nguyen Q, Sheets L, Schrum A BMC Public Health. 2021; 21(1):1466.

PMID: 34320979 PMC: 8317382. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-021-11528-8.

Follow-up Study Methods for a Longitudinal Cohort of Alaska Native and American Indian People Living within Urban South Central Alaska: The EARTH Study.

Beans J, Hiratsuka V, Shane A, Day G, Redwood D, Flanagan C J Community Health. 2019; 44(5):903-911.

PMID: 30798425 PMC: 6707895. DOI: 10.1007/s10900-019-00630-z.

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