Coupling infrastructure improvements to food-energy-water (FEW) system dynamics in small cold region communities

The goal of the MicroFEWs project is to develop a new holistic approach to understanding the linkages between renewable energy use and its downstream impacts upon food, energy, and water (FEW) security in remote Arctic and Subarctic communities. The power grids in such communities, termed islanded microgrids, represent nuclei around which this study frames the local FEW nexus, and the introduction of renewable energy into these systems provide the perturbations necessary to understand system dynamics. This process will be developed through close cooperation with community stakeholders from beginning to end.

Despite more than thirty years of research linking alcohol-exposed pregnancies (AEP) and birth defects, alcohol use by pregnant women continues as a major public health problem and cause of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). While alcohol misuse, AEPs and FASDs are national issues, providing prevention services is a local endeavor that can be especially challenging in rural communities with high-risk populations. The project purpose was to establish the Northwest Arctic FASD Practice and Implementation (NAPIC). NAPIC’s overarching goal was to prepare nurses, psychologists and other healthcare professionals working in the Pacific Northwest/Arctic states (i.e., “Northwest Arctic”) of Alaska, Oregon, and Washington to provide early identification, diagnosis, and treatment of FASDs and to use evidence-based primary prevention strategies and interventions within practice settings to prevent AEPs and FASDs.