The Great Plains Hub, a satellite branch of the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, recently opened its doors in Rapid City, South Dakota. In a state where life expectancy is 25 years lower than that of the general U.S. population, the Great Plains Hub aims to address health disparities and curb deaths from preventable causes among tribal populations.
Its stated initiatives include Together Overcoming Diabetes and the Northern Plains American Indian Lung Cancer Intervention Project, funded by the NIH and the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, respectively. Both projects will bridge traditional and modern approaches to well-being by partnering with spiritual leaders and local health systems.
"I see it as an opportunity to bring two worlds together," says Donald Warne, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe and co-director of the Center for Indigenous Health. "The wonderful academic and great reputation of Johns Hopkins, and our traditional healers, medicine, and culture. Something like that hasn't been done before in the Great Plains."
Warne, who is from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and has lived in the state for many years, will serve as director of the new CIH location, overseeing a leadership team made up entirely of indigenous peoples. Courtney Claussen (Cheyenne River Lakota) is a research associate for the Great Plains Together Overcoming Diabetes study; Jordyn Gunville-Pourier (Cheyenne River Sioux) is managing the Improving Lung Cancer Control Among American Indians in the Northern Plains study; and Loretta Grey Cloud (Kul Wicasa Lakota, Hunkpati Dakota) is a program coordinator who will work closely with the Great Plains Hub team members to provide project-based support.
"The experience and expertise our team brings to the table is really invaluable and can make a big impact for American Indians in the Great Plains," Warne says.
Future plans for the Great Plains Hub include a feasibility study for an Indigenous School of Medicine in Rapid City, aimed at addressing the shortage of indigenous health care professionals in the area, and the Ceremony Assisted Treatment Study, which seeks to evaluate the impact of culturally integrated treatments for substance use disorders.
CIH's programs reach more than 165 tribal communities across the country. In the past few of years, CIH has grown to include First Nations partners in British Columbia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The center has administrative offices in Baltimore, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Pinetop, Arizona; a Great Lakes regional hub in Duluth, Minnesota, serving 11 Ojibwe Tribes; and eight satellite offices in reservation communities in Arizona and New Mexico working in partnership with the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Navajo Nation.
