On Wednesday Sept. 21, the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute Native American Program received the “Area Impact” award from the National Indian Health Board. This award acknowledges individuals and organizations whose work has affected change or impacted healthcare and public health services for their Indian Health Service Area or region.
BAI’s program was recognized for 10 years of leadership in Arizona, bringing culturally sensitive education and outreach programs and leading efforts toward a more proactive dialogue at the National level. A forthcoming educational program will be held in November in Minneapolis, MN that will feature five BAI faculty members.
In addition, BAI’s outreach efforts to recruit and enroll Native American participants into the ADCC cohort have reached an all-time high.
Please join us in celebrating this achievement as we continue serving a very valued group of Arizonans – our Native community.
More about the Native American Outreach Program at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute
Native Americans facing the problem of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) constitute the most underserved and understudied population in the United States. Since 2006, Banner Alzheimer’s Institute established the Native American Outreach Program to help address the educational and clinical needs of patients and families by building strong relationships and a sense of shared ownership in the development of new educational and service programs in both urban and tribal communities across Arizona.
In our first 10 years, we created novel brain health programs to promote healthy cognitive aging, developed a more culturally sensitive tool to assess early memory changes, and created a variety of culturally specific education materials to assist family caregivers including an annual conference reaching 250 participants per year. In 2015 we hosted the first National conference on AD in Natives that continues as part of the 2016 LTSS conference. Our reach has impacted over 8,000 community members, caregivers and professionals.
