JBA Presents at Meeting of Indian Health Service Leadership

The Office of Minority Health (OMH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through policies and programs intended to eliminate health disparities. To help advance this effort, OMH funded JBA to conduct the American Indian/Alaska Native Community Health Aide Program (CHAP) Readiness Assessment Project. Promising results from CHAP have led the Indian Health Service (IHS) to expand the program from Alaska to tribal communities in the lower 48 states.

On December 15, 2020, Tess Abrahamson-Richards, M.P.H., and Erica Roberts, Ph.D., M.H.S., Senior Research Associates at JBA, met with IHS leadership to discuss the assessment project. Its success will depend on engaging national and regional leaders as partners and on obtaining input from tribes across the nation in a feasible, efficient way. IHS Area Directors, the CHAP Director, and other staff and tribal leaders participated in the meeting.