American Indians in North Dakota and the surrounding region have the shortest average life span of American Indians in the United States. Many believe this is due to inadequate health care for American Indians.

State, federal and tribal government officials are meeting through Wednesday this week in Bismarck to address the problem of long-term health care for American Indian elders.

On average, American Indians in North Dakota live to be 64. That's 12 years less than the average life span of 76 for American Indians in California, according to Mary Wakefield, director of the Center for Rural Health.

The Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota is providing much of the research and data on the health of the American Indian population.

Christine Williams is director of the Office of Communications and Knowledge Transfer at the Agency for Healthcare, Research and Quality in Washington, D.C. The agency is one of the co-sponsors of the meeting.

"We want to make sure we take the research that is done and develop it into programs and policies," Williams said.

The groups at the meeting are hoping to take the available information and use it to tailor tribal health care programs to fit the needs of each tribe or region.

"What's important to us is our research doesn't stay on a dusty shelf," Wakefield said.

Wakefield also said there are groups working on an American Indian health-care tool kit of existing working programs to provide to tribes.

"This tool kit helps tribes so they don't have to reinvent the wheel tribe after tribe."

According to Wakefield, American Indians are getting older and living longer like the general population, but lack the infrastructure needed to care for the older population.

Currently, the American Indian population is younger than the general population since most American Indians don't live long enough to become elders.

"It's a huge gap between what people have available and what they need," Wakefield said.

According to research by the Center for Rural Health, North Dakota Indian elders are less likely to have congestive heart failure, strokes and breast cancer, but more likely to have diabetes, arthritis and asthma.

Wakefield said she is optimistic that state, federal and tribal agencies will be able to tailor American Indian health care to fit specific needs and build programs in an area greatly lacking.

(Reach reporter Cathryn Sprynczynatyk at 355-8809 or catspry@bismarcktribune.net.)