UO anthropologist: Northern natives face climate, economic risks

UO anthropologist: Northern natives face climate, economic risks
August 26, 2013

A comprehensive review of 126 published research papers on health conditions of native populations in far-northern climates by University of Oregon anthropologist Josh Snodgrass captures the present and raises warning flags for the future.

The invited review — online in advance of publication in November's Annual Review of Anthropology — drew primarily from epidemiological studies of indigenous populations, including eight of Snodgrass' own papers focusing on Siberia. Two key messages emerged:

• Of approximately 10 million natives who live in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, the Sami of Scandinavia are the healthiest, but their indigenous neighbors across northern Russia show "extremely poor health indicators and marked disparities compared with Russia as a whole."

• Most of the indigenous populations in the five geographically defined regions — Alaska in the United States, northern Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Finland) and northern Russia — now, however, face growing health risks particularly in the face of expanding economic development involving natural resources and a rapidly warming climate.

http://around.uoregon.edu/story/anthropology/uo-anthropologist-northern-natives-face-climate-economic-risks