Anchorage Daily News

The American Cancer Society has awarded a $627,000 grant to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to explore arts-based cancer education programs targeting Alaska Natives.

At a press conference announcing the grant Thursday at the Alaska Native Medical Center, Larry Andrus, regional vice president of ACS, said it was the group's first grant to an Alaska research project since 1966. He praised the proposal by Melany Cueva of ANTHC as "one of the best-written and best-designed" applications his group has seen.

Cueva, who will lead the five-year study, described its goal as finding ways to use "expressive arts" -- such as dance and storytelling -- to communicate information about cancer awareness, detection and treatment, and as educational tools that will produce shifts in behavior and attitude among the state's Native populations.

Speakers at the press event noted that Alaska Natives have much higher rates of cancer than any other ethnic group in the United States and significantly lower survival rates.

Consortium CEO Don Kashevaroff said the disease "that wasn't our problem 50 years ago" is now the No. 1 cause of death for Alaska Natives.

Cueva stressed that the study was not intended to create specific works of art, but to engage with the indigenous ways of understanding and seek out "pathways to communicate cancer understanding in culturally appropriate ways."

Her primary target group will be village health aide workers, she said, who typically receive only two hours of cancer education as part of their training. Cueva said that's inadequate, considering the scope of the problem.

The health aides will eventually take what they learn back to the general populations of their home villages, she said.

To start the project, Cueva said she would be holding discussions with medical professionals, members of the Native community and cancer survivors in January.

She said she was particularly interested in hearing from Alaska Natives who have been affected by cancer, either as patients or as family members.

Cueva can be reached at mcueva@anmc.org.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

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