Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Resilience Research (ANCHRR) COVID Impacted Administrative Supplement

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Alaska experiences among the highest rates of suicide in the nation and impacts most severely upon Alaska Native (AN) youth and young adults. The proposed Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research Resilience (ANCHRR) is in response to RFA-17-350 Collaborative Hubs to Reduce the Burden of Suicide Among American Indian and Alaska Native Youth (U19). The goals of the proposed ANCHRR are to: a) establish a central hub for Alaska that anchors and supports our collective efforts in reducing the burden of AN youth suicide; b) utilize scientific tools to recognize and build AN community-level strengths and protections against suicidal and other co-occurring adverse behaviors through a multilevel model of youth resilience that translates into community practice; and c) develop and sustain capacity to conduct research and use scientific tools to promote and increase Alaska Native youth and community wellbeing. The ANCHRR builds on our established tribal partnerships in the three regions of Alaska with the highest need for effective, culturally congruent and community-based suicide prevention. Drs. Rasmus and Allen have been working collaboratively with Yup’ik communities in the Yukon Kuskokwim region and Dr. Wexler has been doing community-based participatory research in Northwest Alaska (NWA) for 20 years. Both research teams have spent this time partnering with tribal communities and developing evidence-based and self-determined suicide prevention initiatives that reflect local, AN understandings and values, strengthen community systems of support, and build local capacity for strategic prevention practice. The collaborative hub will extend this successful partnership model to include all of the tribal health regions across the state. With relevance for all of rural Alaska, the Alaska Native Resilience Study will provide important insights into the community level factors—institutions, traditions, resources and leaders—and mechanisms—the community perceptions, practices and norms—that increase resilience from suicide and reduce risk. The resulting Alaska Community Resilience Mapping (AK-CRM) Tool will provide a user-friendly, visual representation of the community-level protective factors and processes, and will engage Alaskan community members in identifying the community-level protective factors in their community and will offer scientifically-based recommendations for action. In this way, ANCHRR’s proposed activities translate results from the research study into practical suggestions for tribal leaders, local practitioners and policy makers, to maximize its public health impact.