MISSOULA –

The University of Montana and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium have been awarded a $926,000 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Challenge Grant to fund a two-year effort to address indoor air quality and respiratory health problems among Alaskan Natives.

Working with schools in seven rural Alaska Native villages, grant researchers will collaborate to identify levels of indoor air pollution and rates of respiratory diseases in the communities.

“This new partnership with ANTHC will help us identify exposure risks and provide public health training where it’s most needed by targeting rural villages facing health disparities and endemic health care shortages,” said UM Assistant Professor Tony Ward, principal investigator for the Challenge Grant.

At each of the seven rural Alaska Native villages, local health specialists will be hired and trained to identify air pollution issues of importance, as well as characterize respiratory disease within the remote villages. Initial efforts will focus on introducing a health promotion initiative involving youth and creating environmental health jobs for adult community members.

Designed to raise awareness and improve indoor air quality, this new project is based on an innovative outreach and education program previously established by UM researchers in rural schools located in Montana, Idaho and other communities in Alaska. More information about that project, Montana’s Air Toxics Under the Big Sky, is on the UM Center for Environmental Health Sciences Web site at http://www.umt.edu/cehs/AirTox.html.

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the designated subcontractor under the grant, is a nonprofit health organization owned and managed by the Alaska Native tribal governments and their regional health organizations.

More than 18,000 scientists were involved in the peer review process of 20,000 Challenge Grant applications, with only 200 NIH Challenge Grants awarded nationwide. The grants are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aimed at stimulating economic recovery by funding biomedical and behavioral research and fostering community-based partnerships and interventions to strengthen the environmental public health infrastructure and eliminate health disparities.

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