In partnership with the Native American community of Portland, Oregon, the Indigenous Nations Studies (INST) Department at Portland State University and beyond, we offer the nation’s only undergraduate concentration that centers learning about health equity and public health from Indigenous peoples.
This concentration is a collaborative model that compliments the Indigenous Nations Studies (INST) major and minor, intersects with STEAM disciplines, and can serve as a post baccalaureate pathway to the health sciences professions (nursing, medicine, dentistry).
Our Indigenous Health concentration offers students (Native and non-Native) the opportunity to learn about the functions and tools of public health within anti-racist, decolonizing and liberatory frameworks. We cultivate a future workforce ready to address the lasting impacts of colonialism for health-justice that is beneficial for all. It prepares students to understand the health issues impacting Indigenous peoples, and uplift community-based and community-driven solutions for health-justice, wellness, and equity.
We offer students the opportunity to:
- Learn in a community-based and community-driven process that centers the strengths and contributions of Indigenous people who have been engaging in public health since time immemorial.
- Understand and address racial health disparities through a critical analysis of racism, colonialism, and power.
- Examine, reflect and engage in discourse into social determinants of health impacts on racialized and oppressed populations that are historically underserved and erased by western institutions.
- Critically analyze harmful data and research practices in order to build a workforce that is accountable to address colonialism and racism embedded within public health and intersecting systems through Indigenous strengths-based approaches.
- Understand the critical need for public health to center Indigenous knowledge to uplift practices of community care, decolonize the Land Back movement, and to foster advocates and allies for Indigenous equity.
- Develop equitable public health solutions rooted in Indigenous wisdom, values, and Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledges (ITECK) systems.
Located in the heart of Portland, Oregon, the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health is a leader in educating future public health professionals to advance a healthy and equitable society through community engagement, education, research, scholarship and service.
We are uniquely positioned to leverage the strengths of both parent institutions. OHSU is Oregon’s primary academic medical center charged with improving the health and well-being of Oregonians and beyond. PSU is Oregon’s leading major urban research center and nationally recognized for its innovative work on community engagement, social mobility and service learning.
Together, the two universities provide unmatched opportunities for students to engage in academic innovation with community partnerships to center the ever-changing needs of public health education in our society while advancing health, justice and social equity in our city, state, and world.
This concentration prepares students for careers in nonprofits, education, health policy, social services, medicine, research, disease prevention, community health promotion and public health organizations.
This concentration prepares students to:
- Work with Indigenous communities, equipped with a well-rounded understanding about the key health issues and underlying determinants that impact Indigenous populations.
- Work collaboratively towards a thriving Indigenous future, setting the conditions today to build that future.
- Create a diverse public health workforce by increasing the number and success of Indigenous people within the field of public health and related disciplines, including medical and clinical professions.