Health

Over the past 20 years, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) studies have linked a variety of health and social problems among adult Americans to neglect or abuse they experienced as children. Patrick Sidmore is a planner with the Alaska Mental Health Board, and he has been a leader in analyzing ACE data for Alaska. At ISER he talks about the results of a 2013 survey documenting adverse childhood experiences among adult Alaskans, and the health, social, and economic consequences that can be traced to those experiences. Mr. Sidmore holds degrees in economics and management, as well as social work.

Close to 1% of those 21 or younger in Alaska were in foster care in recent years—about twice the average of 0.5% among all those the same age nationwide. That's one of the findings of a new report by ISER researchers Diwakar Vadapalli, Virgene Hanna, and Jessica Passini, examining trends in the age, gender, and ethnicity of children and teenagers in Alaska's foster care system from 2006 through 2013. They also found that younger children make up an increasing share of those in Alaska's foster care system; that girls are somewhat more likely than boys to be in foster care; and that Alaska Native children account for about 60% of all those in foster care. Download the report, Trends in Age, Gender, and Ethnicity Among Children in Foster Care in Alaska, by Diwakar Vadapalli, Virgene Hanna, and Jessica Passini. If you have questions, get in touch with Diwakar Vadapalli at 907-786-5422 or diwakarvk@uaa.alaska.edu.

A new report by Mouhcine Guettabi, Rosyland Frazier, and Gunnar Knapp of ISER analyzes the results of a survey of Alaska employers about what health-care benefits they offer employees. The Alaska Department of Labor conducted the survey, which covered businesses, local governments, and school districts statewide. The Alaska Health Care Commission contracted with the department and ISER for the work. The report finds, among other things, that two-thirds of Alaska businesses don't provide health-insurance, and the reason they cite most often is no surprise: it's too expensive. And although about a third of employees at Alaska firms work part-time or seasonally, very few of them carry employer-based insurance. Of those employees carrying insurance through their employers, 95% are full-time workers and only 5% are part-time or seasonal. Download the report, Alaska Employer Health-Care Benefits: A Survey of Alaska Employers (pdf, 1.9MB), by Mouhcine Guettabi, Rosyland Frazier, and Gunnar Knapp. A summary, Snapshot of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance in Alaska (pdf, 669.9KB), by the same authors, is also available. If you have questions, get in touch with Mouhcine Guettabi at mguettabi@alaska.edu or 907-786-5496.

Treating medical problems related to obesity among the current group of children and teenagers in Alaska will cost about $624 million (in today's dollars) over the next 20 years, according to a new analysis by Mouhcine Guettabi, assistant professor of economics at ISER. That includes costs for the 15% who are obese now, and will likely remain so as adults, as well as another 20% who aren't obese now but will become obese as adults.  These are the first estimates of the medical costs associated with obesity among those ages 2 through 19 in Alaska today. The study, Current and Future Medical Costs of Obesity in Alaska (pdf, 372.5KB), was done for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. If you have questions, get in touch with Mouhcine Guettabi at mguettabi@alaska.edu.

Suicide rates among Alaska Natives rose rapidly in the 1960s and have remained high since then, with the highest rate among young Alaska Native men living in Alaska's small rural communities: 20 times the rate among Americans as a whole. But suicide rates among young Alaska Native men are considerably higher or lower in some small rural places than in others.  In a recent analysis, Matthew Berman, professor of economics at ISER, looked at how community living conditions—including local alcohol control—affect suicide rates among young Alaska Native men. Analyzing data from the period 1980 through 2007, he found that specific community characteristics were associated with either higher or lower risk of suicide. Download the analysis, Suicide Among Young Alaska Native Men: Community Factors and Alcohol Control (PDF, 561.5KB). It was published in the American Journal of Public Health. If you have questions, get in touch with Matthew Berman at matthew.berman@uaa.alaska.edu.

Jennifer Shaw, PhD (Case Western Reserve, 2013) is a Senior Researcher at Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage, where she conducts research on youth suicide prevention, healthcare decision-making, and the development of culturally grounded health services. Her research interests are in medical anthropology, social determinants of health, and cross-cultural childhood and adolescence. She will talk about the role of subsistence in the well-being of Dena’ina Athabascan youths growing up in Southwestern Alaska. How do subsistence and other cultural activities fit into the lives and aspirations of contemporary Dena’ina youths living in rural Alaska? What factors impede or facilitate their ability to achieve these aspirations in the transition to adulthood? Dr. Shaw conducted an ethnographic case study with 19 youths in one Dena’ina village, which showed that despite concerns about Alaska Native youths’ commitment to culture, this group deeply identifies with their tradition and aspires to continue these activities into adulthood, despite significant obstacles in their paths.

Anyone who believes a child in Alaska is being neglected or abused can call the state Office of Children's Services, which records the allegation and determines whether to investigate it. A new paper by Diwakar Vadapalli and Virgene Hanna of ISER looks at trends from 2006 through 2012 in allegations of child abuse and neglect and in the share OCS decided to investigate. The authors found a sharp increase in the number of allegations, especially of neglect. The number of investigations also increased, but not by nearly as much—and the increase was entirely in investigations of neglect, while the number of investigations of abuse was virtually the same in 2012 as in 2006. Read more Download the paper (PDF, 1.0MB)