COVID-19 has killed Native Americans at twice the rate of White Americans, underscoring the health inequities and deep-rooted distrust tribal nations have of federal government entities.
Dr Mary Hasbah Roessel
And yet, Native Americans have the highest vaccination rates of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States. Like many other tribal nations, the Navajo had to embrace Western science to reclaim its social customs and ceremonies. “We’re a very social culture, so having to isolate really impacted our mental health,” said Mary Hasbah Roessel, MD, DLFAPA, a Navajo psychiatrist who is affiliated with Santa Fe Indian Hospital in New Mexico.
The Navajo nation occupies the largest Native American reservation in the United States, spanning New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. As of mid-October, the nation had reported more than 34,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,400 deaths in its jurisdiction.
In an interview with this news organization, Roessel described the partnerships that mobilized a nation of more than 250,000 individuals to get vaccinated.
Question: Why has the death rate been so high in the Navajo nation?
Answer: A lot of health disparities before the pandemic were blatantly revealed during COVID. Only 40% of people on the reservation had running water. Having to stay home and isolate led to food insecurity. Further insecurity issues affected our ability to stay healthy, such as having good sanitation. There’s a lot of poverty, a high unemployment rate. Some people had to go to work off reservation and were potentially bringing the virus home. A lot of generations live in the same household. Elders were vulnerable to getting the infection, and there was little ability to isolate if someone wasn’t having symptoms. Hospitals nearby didn’t have ICUs.
Therefore, the rate of cases skyrocketed early on. We were disproportionately affected. The Navajo nation per capita had the highest rate of cases in any state.
Q: What changes took place within the Navajo nation to get people vaccinated? What role did the federal Indian Health Service have in promoting this?
A: There had to be a shift in acceptance of the vaccinations. I think what particularly helped the Navajo nation was seeing the IHS rise up and provide access for treatments and vaccinations early on.
With the IHS, we went into a disaster response mode with all-hands-on deck meetings. We had to figure out how we could access mass vaccination clinics. Partnering with the Navajo Department of Health, we did that right away with hospitals and small clinics across the Navajo nation. Casinos owned by tribal entities that closed during COVID reopened and were used as vaccination clinics.
Vaccinations were sent to us fairly quickly. I ended up getting vaccinated in December 2020, when it was first rolled out.
Native and Navajo individuals have been reluctant to rely on government services. Because IHS came through with the vaccines, COVID reduced that stigma to access its services. Even the Navajo Department of Health partnered with the Indian Health Service to provide culturally relevant campaigns that explain why the vaccine is valuable.
I think because people were so impacted, they saw something valuable with the vaccine. Given the education and access, people were ready to get vaccinated. They realized if a whole household got vaccinated, they could see early on that they could be social again.
Q: What cultural factors have been contributing to this positive development?
A: In our Navajo culture, we’ve dealt with monsters before. We talk about that in terms of how we teach our young people to be strong and resilient. We talked about this virus as being another monster we had to tackle and control. The teaching was along those lines. We’ve dealt with this before, and we can handle it. We’re resilient. Our culture is very strong in that way. So how do we do it? We have to partner; we have to embrace Western medicine to return back to the ceremonies we want to have again and be social again. We focus on positive things, so if we see something as potentially positive, such as the vaccine, we see that and know that’s something to help us come into our life again.
Q: I would expect that protecting elders in the tribe would be a big incentive in taking the vaccine.
A: Yes, we didn’t want to lose our language and culture, and we wanted to protect our elders. Having a way to do that was very important as well. They were among the first to get vaccinated.
Q: What is the current vaccination rate in the Navajo nation?
A: I think it’s in the upper 80th percentile. It’s very high.
Q: What have been the biggest takeaways so far, and what are your hopes for the future?
A: Even though the Navajo Nation has been impacted and devastated with the loss of elders and knowledge keepers, we still have our culture and ceremonies intact to the point that we know we can be resilient get through this difficult time.
Through collaborations with the federal and state governments and the clinics, we see that things are different now. Going forward, my hope is these partnerships will continue, that we’ll build those relationships and not be so siloed in our care. When the New Mexico Department of Health rolled out its first vaccination clinic, for example, we jumped on and saw how they did it. We were then able to do our own, collaborating with the state.
We also saw how important our culture was, how it helped our Navajo people through these difficult times.
Roessel, a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, has special expertise in cultural psychiatry. Her childhood was spent growing up in the Navajo nation with her grandfather, who was a Navajo medicine man. Her psychiatric practice focuses on integrating Indigenous knowledge and principles.
References:
American Public Media Research Lab. “The Color of Coronavirus: COVID-19 Deaths by Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.” 2021 Mar 5.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Demographic Characteristics of People Receiving COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States.” Data as of 2021 Oct 14.
Navajo Nation. Indian Health Service. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
The Navajo Nation’s Office of the President and Vice President. “11 New Cases, 32,735 Recoveries, and Six Recent Deaths Related to COVID-19.” 2021 Oct 13.
Navajo Nation Government web page.
This article originally appeared on MDedge.com, part of the Medscape Professional Network.
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