Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board
2121 SW Broadway #300
Portland, OR
United States
The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) is a non-profit tribal organization serving forty-three federally recognized tribes in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Each member tribe appoints a Delegate via tribal resolution and meets quarterly to direct and oversee all activities of NPAIHB.
The NPAIHB houses a tribal epidemiology center (EpiCenter), several health promotion and disease prevention projects, is active in Native American health policy at the state and federal level, and implements work in four key areas:
-Health promotion and disease prevention
-Legislative and policy analysis
-Training and technical assistance
-Surveillance and research
This proposal falls under the Advancing Equity funding initiative, and the Strengthen Community Voice and State Advocacy sub-initiative and seeks to capitalize on a new window of opportunity coming out of 2020 and the national authorization, by Indian Health Services of the Tribal Community Health Aide Program (CHAP). CHAP is a community-based, multi-level health care education framework that creates accessible career ladders, and builds capacity, while increasing access to care and socio-economic status. The program includes the training and employment of community health aides, behavioral health aides, and, as the specific focus of this project, dental health aides. Dental health aides are optimally positioned in alignment with community health aides and behavioral health aides, and trained to provide, and bill for, prevention and tele-prevention services. NPAIHB has been a leader in advancing the national implementation of CHAP for the past six years, including establishing a CHAP Certification Board in their region. To implement this project NPAIHB will capitalize on existing partnerships with all regional federally recognized Tribal Nations, strong partnerships with high schools and colleges, and the Seattle Indian Health Board to design and implement an educational program that creates access points for college and high school students. The curriculum is currently in the process of CODA accreditation and will build local pipelines to careers as Dental Health Aides and Expanded Function Dental Health Aides. By the end of the year, they will have launched a pilot of dental health aides into a community-based care location, serving Tribal Nations, and have developed a scale-up plan for the broader state and region.
In addition to the build and implementation of the program, NPAIHB will serve as a critical stakeholder in the implementation of new and existing dental therapy programs in the region and continue to identify and address federal and Tribal policies that perpetuate existing barriers and structural racism.
This unique window of opportunity aligns with the CareQuest Institute priorities in building a person-centered oral health system from community-centric workforce to equitable and sustainable care delivery. Additionally, this work specifically seeks to create a health and economic impact in Native communities and creates a model that can be spread in other parts of the country.
The budget for this proposal is $200,000. About 60% of that budget goes to staff time to implement and coordinate the project as well as a small budget for travel and supplies and $26,000 for consultant services for legal review and curriculum development.
The total budget for NPAIHB is about $36M and so this funding represents less than 1% of their overall budget.