COVID-19 Pandemic and Indigenous Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every population in some way, regardless of background; Native Americans are no exception. The loss of life and security that the virus brought is magnified when one compares their health statistics to those of the general American population. Native Americans are not a monolith, and each community deserves its own in-depth analysis of the issues brought on and revealed by the pandemic, but a simple look at the welfare of the general Native American population already yields unforgivable numbers and uncomfortable truths. In the midst of the nation’s fractured efforts to return to normalcy and contain the spread of COVID-19, it is important to take stock of what has changed and what must be addressed for Native American communities.

The disparate deaths suffered by Native Americans during outbreaks is not without precedent. In the Spanish Flu of 1918, eighty percent of the deaths in the state of Alaska were from Alaskan natives (Burki, 2021). The higher death rate that Native Americans suffered nearly a century later during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic showed that time was not enough to fix the rift between the health of Native Americans and the health of other groups. This elevated rate of death and infection is consistent in the current pandemic as well - in New Mexico, Native Americans are a little less than ten percent of the population, and yet were recorded as making up seventy-five percent of COVID deaths in the state (Shah et al., 2020). Even in other states where the numbers are less pronounced, Native Americans are overrepresented in COVID-19 deaths and infections.

This overrepresentation is not due to simple bad luck, but rather a systemic pattern of injustice that predates the conception of the modern United States. Native Americans who live on reservations often have low quality resources, including crowded living conditions and hospitals with insufficient staff (Shah et al., 2020). These conditions are a legacy of the federal government’s failure to fully account for the services that they agreed to provide to Native Americans after seizing their land. Another legacy of this ineptitude is the state of the Indian Health Service, or the IHS. Created to address the health of Native Americans, it is known for being chronically underfunded and unable to fully meet the needs of the population it aims to serve (Shah et al., 2020). Native Americans who live in urban areas face similar challenges, with many of them living in food deserts and having a higher rate of illnesses such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease (Burki, 2021). These chronic illnesses compounded with lackluster resources lead to poorer health outcomes for many Native Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 clearly presents a magnified threat to Native Americans, and the full scale of its effects merit close attention and genuine mitigation efforts. Along with its negative impact on wellbeing, COVID-19 has highlighted the faults in our national systems that harm indigenous communities. Whether those will be addressed depends on the willingness of institutions and everyday citizens to listen and educate themselves about the matter at hand.

References

Burki, T. (2021). Covid-19 Among American Indians and Alaska Natives. The Lancet Infectious

Diseases, 21(3), 325-326. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00083-9.

Shah, Arnav et al. (2020). The Challenge of COVID-19 and American Indian Health. The

Commonwealth Fund. www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/challenge-covid-19-

and-american-indian-health.