Environmental Health and Justice in Norton Sound, Alaska

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) The purpose of this project is to work in partnership with fifteen communities in the Norton Sound region of Alaska to find effective means to limit the release and mitigate the human health effects of contaminants in the natural environment. The majority of the residents of these villages are Inupiat and Yupik, indigenous people who depend on the harvest of wild foods to sustain them and their ways of life. Our collaborative work will include constructing a database of information regarding formerly used defense sites (FUDS) in the region and the contaminants found at these sites. Building on our successful work at St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, we will develop a model for exchanging information among the communities about those strategies that proved effective with the government agencies responsible for clean up of FUDS in the region. We will work with village leaders to provide training to oversee FUDS clean-up work and establish independent monitoring programs for contaminants. Together, we will develop an environmental health care curriculum for the diagnosis and treatment of human health problems associated with environmental contaminants. We will work with regional health care providers to develop an information exchange for health care professionals in the Norton Sound region to discuss diagnosis and effective treatment of human health effects of environmental contaminants. We will analyze historical data from the Alaska Birth Defects Registry and work with regional health care providers to collect data on the frequency of birth defects among children in the region. We will collect breast milk samples from new mothers in the region to analyze them for the presence of contaminants. This pilot study will help residents design a methodology for conducting research on contaminants that may be important factors affecting the health of their communities so they can be fully engaged in future human health and contaminants studies planned for the region. This methodology will include protocols for environmental sampling near FUDS in the region, examining body burdens of contaminants in residents and documenting incidences of environmental diseases.