Grand Rounds - Indigenous Social Determinants of Health and Substance Use and Mental Health Outcomes

About this event

Myra Parker, JD, MPH, PhD, will provide an update on the most recent overdose data among American Indian and Alaska Native populations. She will include considerations of social determinants of health unique to these communities, along with qualitative findings of American Indian and Alaska Native youth on strength-based factors associated with Canoe Journey participation.

Dr. Parker is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of Seven Directions: A Center for Indigenous Public Health, based within the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors, University of Washington. She received her doctorate in Health Services at UW School of Public Health, and has been a member of the faculty since 2014. Dr. Parker’s research and clinical interests include: (1) cultural adaptation of alcohol and drug interventions among American Indians and Alaska Natives (with a particular focus on tribal college drinking harm reduction), (2) development and testing of parenting interventions to support early childhood development in American Indian and Alaska Native communities, (3) co-morbidity of substance use with depression, suicide, trauma, and PTSD, (4) research capacity development, including ethical aspects of research, for tribal and urban Indian communities; and, (5) dissemination and translation of evidence-based prevention and intervention approaches at the individual, institutional, and community level, including policy development. She has worked with tribal and urban Indian communities across the United States on these topics.