American Indians Today - an Overview - Economic conditions, Health Conditions

Economic conditions:

"American Indians are the most impoverished minority in the United States."

The BIA rez housing inventory for federally recognized tribes shows more than 157,000 existing housing units, but over a third of these were in substandard condition, and a full FIFTH of them lacked complete plumbing facilities. According to the BIA, more than 49,000 new units are needed - 2/3 for families still NEEDING housing, and the rest to replace the substandard housing that can't be renovated.

On the plus side, the numbers of indian businesspeople and indians in white-collar jobs is increasing, and many new jobs have been created with tribal governments. IN 1997, the survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises showed that Indian owned-businesses in the US totaled 197,300, generated 34.3 BILLION in revenues, and employed almost 300,000 people. This number of Indian (and Alaskan Native) owned firms was an 84 percent increase from 5 years earlier.


Health Conditions
The Formal Health Care service for indians is IHS - Indian Health Service. It's been around since 1955. 20 years later, the indian health care system got a statutory boost - with the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. It gave tribes the option of managing IHS programs in their communities and gave them funding to do it.

IHS provides health services to rez indians AND some urban NDNs. In 2002 it served about 60 percent of the total Native population.

the general health of Natives americans has improved over the last 50 years, but a lot of the NDN population is still in poor health compared to the rest of the country. Life expectancy has increased to 69.4 years for men and 77.6 years for women. These are still WAY lower than the life expectancy for Americans of all races, though.

IN 2000, the birth rate for american NDNs was 16.8 per 1000, higher than the national average of 14.7. This is WAY down from the 26.6 per 1000 the NDNs had in 1991-3, though.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for indians, just like it is for all other groups. But the mortality rates for other things is MUCH higher in the NDN population than in the general population. Like, 11.9 percent of the total indian deaths are from accidents. As compared to only 4 percent for whites. The total percentage of indians that die from diabetes-related issues is 5.4, as compared to only 2.7 percent of whites. Mortality rates for suicide, chronic liver disease and homicide are also much higher among the indian population.

Other health issues? The number of indians living with AIDS has more than doubled from 1993 to 2000, but the IHS also reports that the mortality rate from HIV infection is far below the rates for all races of Americans. In 2001, the IHS spent roughly 4 million dollars on AIDS educaton, prevention and treatment.

The problems with health care? IHS budgeting has not kept pace with health care costs. It's also hard to recruit doctors, because many non-NDN doctors see the reservations as unattractive assignments. Even though the number of indian doctors is mushrooming, IHS hospitals are always understaffed. Also, Urban Indians are only eligible for limited health services, and members of terminated and non-recognized tribes are not eligible for any health services through the IHS.

Next posting I will talk about Education. The reason I am going through all this informaton is to give everyone a snapshot of what's going on, so they can understand the problems TODAY as well as the historical issues. After I cover education, we'll discuss the current state of indian land and resources, development, and then assimilation of tribes. Then we'll hop back into the historical stuff in more detail as we start working through the first supreme court cases and the beginnings of the trail of Indian law. So stay tuned!