Wabanaki Public Health is pleased to submit a grant application for CDC-RFA-DP18-1813, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) opportunity. The five tribal communities in Maine (Aroostook Band of Micmac, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Passamaquoddy ? Pleasant Point, Passamaquoddy ? Indian Township, and Penobscot Nation) are known as the Wabanaki, the People of the First Light. To improve health, prevent chronic disease, and reduce health disparities related to health risk behaviors among American Indians in Maine, with a primary focus on Native youth. Wabanaki Public Health (WPH) will expand the existing intertribal youth program and develop a multi-year Wabanaki youth plan that supports and trains adult youth workers, offers high-quality culturally relevant youth mentoring, and creates youth leadership opportunities. The Nikanis youth program will be supported by a systems approach to address health disparities at a policy level (i.e. creating breastfeeding-friendly workplaces, tribal-wide commercial tobacco policies, overall wellness policies) as well as at a grassroots community level. WPH has the infrastructure and capacity to address commercial tobacco, nutrition, physical activity, and linkages to the community. WPH will building on the current programming and improve community-clinical linkages. The activities in this grant proposal have the potential to dramatically change the future of the Tribal populations in Maine. This grant will increase the capacity of WPH to not only address the required tobacco, nutrition, physical activity, and clinical linkages requirements, but will allow WPH to expand our focus on youth engagement. The youth are the future of our communities and by offering youth healthy alternatives and opportunities to connect more deeply with their culture, we can make a meaningful change on the health outcomes of our Tribes.
