Social Medicine in Practice: Realizing the American Indian and Alaska Native Right to Health

American Indians and Alaska Natives have long held a state-conferred right to health, yet Indigenous communities across the United States continue to experience significant health and health care disparities. In this paper we posit two contributing factors: socialization for scarcity in tribal health care, and a slowness among health workers and allied health and social scientists to make explicit and convincing linkages between social determinants of health and human rights. We then summarize one attempt to align tribal health care delivery in the Alaskan Arctic with a rights-based approach, highlighting both the role of social and structural determinants as causes of health disparities and the role of social and structural interventions in local efforts to chart a future of equal health for our home.