%A Tshona Corbin
%T Barriers to Health Care Access Among American Indian and Alaska Native Populations
%X American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations suffer significant disparities in health status while also experiencing multiple barriers related to accessing health care services. Since increasing health care access was listed as a goal of Healthy People 2010, there is public health significance in identifying health care access barriers among AIAN populations and relating these barriers to health disparities. Most of the research surrounding AIAN health issues focuses on the prevalence and treatment of specific diseases. Another area of research is the accessibility of health care services to the AIAN population. However, very little of the research in either of these fields has progressed beyond simply identifying health status or health care access disparities. Additionally, many of the health statistics attributed to this population have been found to be inaccurate or deficient through incomplete data collection and racial misclassification on medical records. Given the significant health disparities that do exist, as well as those additional disparities hypothesized from incomplete data, the underlying causes of health disparities in the AIAN population must be recognized. By examining the most common barriers to health care access and relating these barriers to the current health status of many AIAN populations, this thesis contends that there can be greater understanding of the causes of health disparities within AIAN populations and illuminates possible points of intervention to improve health care access.
%D 2010
%K  access; health care; American Indian; disparities
%I University of Pittsburgh
%L pittir7075