Zaniya to Indians: Thanks for the Word; Here's More

The Zaniya Project Task Force borrowed its name from the Lakota word for health and well-being. In return, South Dakota's Indian population is getting... well, a lot of words.

Three of the Zaniya final report's sixteen recommendations (#14-16, pp.20-23) focus on American Indian health issues. Quite well they ought: Zaniya finds (p.4) that South Dakota's American Indians die at an average age of 56 (compared to 81 for whites). South Dakota's American Indians also have "the highest years of potential life lost before the age of 75 of any
race/ethnic group in the U.S.," Whatever the causes, that's a stunning loss of life, of family, not to mention productivity. Such egregious mortality statistics ought to shame this pro-life state to drop everything else and help our neighbors live longer.

However, a casual linguistic analysis of the specific "actions" recommended shows a preponderance of thumb-twiddling. Let's look at the verbs used:

Thumb-twiddling verbs:

1. urge
2. encourage
3. identify
4. advocate
5. conduct a study
6. explore
   
7. consider
8. identify (again)
   
9. advocate (again)
10. explore (again -- thesaurus must have given out here)
    

actual action verbs:

1. ensure ("continued funding for maintenance of existing IHS hospitals and clinic facilities and services in South Dakota" -- notice no new action for improvement)
2. create and implement ("a plan that maximizes Medicaid, SCHIP, Medicare and other third-party participation and reduces/eliminates the number of contract health claims
   denied by IHS due to failure to access alternative resources" -- again, no new resources)
3. address ("primary and preventative health care service gaps by IHS service units in order to improve access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care" -- but this verb's a bit fuzzy, basically "do something," even though the Zaniya folks are leaving it to someone else to figure out what)
   
4. possibly enhance ("revenues available to IHS service units from alternative resources" -- ah! actual money! but Zaniya can't let that verb go unqualified)
5. collaborate ("among the vested parties to enhance efforts that provide training and education to and support the recruitment and retention of IHS and tribal health care practitioners")
6. address (again, this time "issues within the public health care delivery system to simplify access and use, enhance capacity, support systematic data collection and analysis, and promote health, wellness, and disease management.")
7. work ("to address the individual health care crises created by the funding shortfall of IHS contract health care, focusing on acute and preventive health care.")
   

Prevention and education are better than nothing. And someone has to go Washington and urge, encourage, and advocate for the American Indian population that we have used, abused, and lately ignored.

But through the smoke of the language, one signal seems clear: the Zaniya Project has some talk about American Indian health, but not a lot of new ideas or resources to back it up. Let's hope the legislature can do better.