In this issue: the Winnebago Tribal Diabetes Program, new resource to help families impacted by opioids, toy safety, funding opportunities, and more
Spotlight: Winnebago Tribal Diabetes Program
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The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska offers an extensive diabetes program, including a weekly diabetes clinic, diabetes education, screening, and youth intervention programs.
Wa'i Pi Nagu is the Tribe's 10-week diabetes education program. It offers participants opportunities to learn about healthy eating, physical activity, blood sugar monitoring, foot care, medication, and other ways to manage diabetes.
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Camilla Barajas, Winnebago Tribe RN and diabetes educator
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"It's been really fun. It never seems like work. You see patients empowered and taking control of their diabetes."
— Camilla Barajas, Winnebago Tribe RN and diabetes educator
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Many of the programs target people who are pre-diabetic or at high risk for diabetes. For instance, the tribe's elementary school program offers 6 weeks of personal training and healthy eating education to promote weight loss for first- through third-graders at risk for diabetes.
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Ho-Chunk Hope is a lifestyle balance program for people with pre-diabetes, which offers 16 sessions on topics like nutrition, exercise, goal setting, and behavior change.
Camilla Barajas, a registered nurse and diabetes educator, says that people who participate in Winnebago Tribe's diabetes programs see improvements in weight, blood pressure, and other health factors, and they have fewer diabetes-related health complications.
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December: Healthy holidays
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Share this ad in your newsletter or on your website. Other sizes are available on CMS’s Outreach and Education Resources page.
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 Tweet it
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Healthy #holidays. Keep your family healthy by signing them up for health coverage.
Video
#Nativehealth
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Flyers and fact sheets
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Funding opportunity: Connect kids to coverage
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Letters of intent due: January 4, 2019
Applications due: January 28, 2019
The Connecting Kids to Coverage Healthy Kids 2019 Outreach and Enrollment Cooperative Agreement Program is offering grants to help increase enrollment of eligible, uninsured children in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Tribes and tribal organizations are eligible to apply. Interested applicants are invited to participate in a teleconference on December 19, 2018, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. eastern.
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HRSA resources on moms, babies, and opioids
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The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently released the guide, HRSA's Home Visiting Program: Supporting Families Impacted by Opioid Use and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (PDF, 450 KB, 28 pp).
The resource offers information and treatment strategies to assist families experiencing the effects of opioid use disorder and neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Though the resource is designed for HRSA's Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program awardees, it is available to anyone working with families affected by opioids.
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Addressing Alzheimer's disease-related health disparities
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Misconceptions and knowledge gaps contribute significantly to Alzheimer's disease-related health disparities in Native populations. Several teams at Washington State University (WSU) are addressing those disparities through education, outreach, and research.
Partnerships for Native Health—a unit under WSU's Initiative for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH)—works with tribes, tribal organizations, and community-based programs to increase awareness of Alzheimer's disease and its impact on patients and families.
"In Native communities, many people don't understand what Alzheimer's is," says Dedra Buchwald, MD, Director of IREACH and founding director of Partnerships for Native Health. "So, we disseminate culturally appropriate materials with the message that the disease is not a normal part of aging."
Ultimately, being able to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease among American Indian and Alaska Native people will require national data regarding the disease's basic patterns in Native populations. To that end, Partnerships for Native Health is working with Native elders to explore cultural values that might prevent or promote their participation in Alzheimer's disease-related research.
Building on 20 years of community-based research with American Indian and Alaska Native people, Buchwald and colleagues are currently studying vascular brain disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cognitive impairment. The elders enrolled in the study live in mostly rural areas and are spread across three states and many tribes.
Recently, WSU also collaborated with the University of Colorado Denver and Stanford University to establish the Native Alzheimer's Disease-Related Resource Center in Minority Aging. Funded by a $2.8-million grant from the National Institute on Aging, the Center offers financial support and mentoring to scientists, especially those of Native heritage, who are interested in conducting research on Alzheimer's disease in Native populations.
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'Tis the season for safety
Each year, thousands of children experience a toy-related injury. Help keep kids safe this holiday season by sharing the following tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
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Choose safe toys that are appropriate for a child's age and ability.
- Avoid BB guns and items with parts that fly off.
- Avoid giving young children any toys that involve magnets, button batteries, or other small items that can be swallowed.
- Remove tags and ribbons from new toys before children play with them.
- Teach children how to play with toys safely.
- Promptly repair or discard broken toys.
- Include safety gear, like helmets and pads, with gifts of bicycles, scooters, skateboards, and other sports-related equipment.
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Funding opportunity: Improve mental health services
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Deadline: December 21, 2018
Grants are available for projects that improve access to treatment and support for youth and young adults who have serious emotional disturbances or mental illness.
Federally recognized tribes and tribal organizations are eligible to apply.
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Funding opportunity: Help people with HIV quit smoking
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Deadline: January 8, 2019
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The National Cancer Institute and National Institute on Drug Abuse are funding research to improve smoking cessation among people living with HIV. Research may address smoking-related health disparities.
Tribal governments and tribal organizations are encouraged to apply.
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HPV and cervical cancer screening
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American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women should get regular cervical cancer screenings and AI/AN adolescents should get human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations to address higher rates of cervical cancer among AI/AN women, according to the authors of a recent study on HPV and Native women.
The study, published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that Native women—especially those aged 50 to 65—have a high rate of high-risk HPV. The study's authors note that the younger women in the study had higher rates of HPV vaccination, which may explain their lower rates of cervical cancer.
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Contribute to NIHB's story banking campaign
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Do you have a story about how health coverage has helped you, a family member, a friend, or someone from your community?
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If so, consider sharing that story with the National Indian Health Board, which advocates for the wellness of tribal communities. Please feel free to omit participants' actual names and any other sensitive details from your submission.
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CMS ITU Outreach and Education Training
December 12–13, 2018
Rapid City, SD
The target audience for this CMS ITU training is business office staff, benefits coordinators, patient registration staff, medical records staff, and purchased/referred care services staff. Topics include CMS Tribal Affairs updates, Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, state-administered programs, Social Security, and Veterans Affairs.
Upcoming ITU Outreach and Education Trainings:
February 27 in San Diego, CA
March 12 in Gallup, NM
March 20 in Denver, CO
April 3 in Seattle, WA
April 23 in Albuquerque, NM
May 14 in Tulsa, OK
June 4 in Sacramento, CA
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CMS Quality Conference
January 29–31, 2019
Baltimore, MD
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The CMS Quality Conference is open to community stakeholders from across the health care spectrum. Interactive sessions, master classes, seminars, and keynote addresses will cover topics such as value-based care, management of complex chronic conditions, and opioid reduction.
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NICWA Training Institute
February 5–7, 2019
Palm Springs, CA
National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) Training Institutes provide opportunities to keep current on child welfare. February's training institute will focus on tribal customary adoption, in-home services, and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Register.
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Circle of Harmony HIV/AIDS Wellness Conference
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March 26–28, 2019
Albuquerque, NM
Sponsored by the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, this 14th annual conference addresses issues related to prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS among Native Americans.
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NICWA Protecting Our Children Conference
March 31–April 3, 2019
Albuquerque, NM
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Contact Us
Do you have news to share? Send it to coveringic@kauffmaninc.com for possible inclusion in an upcoming newsletter. Contact us with other comments or feedback, too.
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About the Newsletter
Covering Indian Country is published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Division of Tribal Affairs to share resources, success stories, and best practices with the people who connect tribal communities to health coverage.
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