Alaska Alliance
for Community Engagement
“Our own Elders told us when we were growing up that the world was going to change and then go back to the way it was a long time ago before the kassaq (Europeans/ Euro-Americans) came. They saw the kassaq coming and knew our Yup’ik way of life was going to change with it. Then they said, when the animals start to come down to the sea; when animals of the land like the moose and wolf, when they start to move towards the coast like they are now, the world is going to go back to the way it was. And when the moose walk into the sea it will return to the way that it was when our ancestors were living their yuu’yaraq (Yup’ik way of life).â€
— Paul Nukusuk, Hooper Bay
Our Goals
Prioritize Indigenous knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about local environmental stressors and their impacts on health and well-being in Alaska.
Co-produce new measures and strategies to assess multi-level risk and resilience factors in rural Alaska Native communities.
Implement Indigenous-led interventions to build adaptive capacity and holistic well-being in rural Alaska Native communities.
This research was, in part, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Agreement OT2HL158287. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the NIH.