American Indian Health and Nursing

The average life expectancy of a male born on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota today is 40 years old—the lowest life expectancy of all peoples not only in the U.S. but also in the entire Western Hemisphere. Written by and for nurses, this is the first text to focus exclusively on American Indian health and nursing. It addresses the profound disparities in policy, health care law, and health outcomes that affect American Indians, and describes how these disparities, bound into the cultural, environmental, historical, and geopolitical fabric of American Indian society, are responsible for the marked lack of wellbeing of American Indians. American Indian nurse authors, natives of nine unique American Indian cultures, address the four domains of health—physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional--within each region to underscore the many stunning disparities of opportunity for health and wellbeing within the American Indian culture as opposed to those of "Anglo" culture.