The Navajo people have dealt with adversity that has tested our strength and resilience since our creation. In Navajo culture, the Holy People or gods challenged us with Naayee (monsters). We endured and learned from each Naayee, hunger, and death to name a few adversities. The COVID-19 pandemic, or “Big Cough” (Dikos Nitsaa’igii -19 in Navajo language) is a monster confronting the Navajo today. It has had significant impact on our nation and people.
The Navajo have the most cases of the COVID-19 virus of any tribe in the United States, and numbers as of May 31, 2020, are 5,348, with 246 confirmed deaths.1 The Navajo Nation, which once lagged behind New York, has reported the largest per-capita infection rate in the United States.
These devastating numbers, which might be leveling off, are associated with Navajo people having higher-than-average numbers of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. This is compounded with 30%-40% of homes having no electricity or running water, and a poverty rate of about 38%.2
Geographical and cultural factors also contribute to the inability to gain a foothold in mitigating the number of cases. The Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in the United States, covering 27,000 square miles over an arid, red rock expanse with canyons and mountains. The population is over 250,000,3 and Navajo have traditionally lived in matrilineal clan units throughout the reservation, the size of West Virginia. The family traditional dwelling, called a “hogan,” often is clustered together. Multiple generations live together in these units. The COVID-19 virus inflicted many Navajo and rapidly spread to the elderly in these close-proximity living quarters.
Most Navajo live away from services and grocery stores and travel back and forth for food and water, which contributes to the virus rapidly being transmitted among the community members. Education aimed at curbing travel and spread of the virus was issued with curfews, commands to stay at home and keep social distance, and protect elders. The Navajo leadership and traditional medicine people, meanwhile, advised the people to follow their cultural values by caring for family and community members and providing a safe environment.
Resources are spread out
There are only 13 stores in this expansive reservation,4 so tribal members rely on traveling to border towns, such as Farmington and Gallup, N.M., Families usually travel to these towns on weekends to replenish food and supplies. There has been a cluster of cases in Gallup, N.M., so to reduce the numbers, the town shut itself off from outsiders – including the Navajo people coming to buy food, do laundry, and get water and feed for livestock. This has affected and stressed the Navajo further in attempting to access necessities.
Access to health care is already challenging because of lack of transportation and distance. This has made it more difficult to access COVID-19 testing and more challenging to get the results back. The Indian Health Service has been the designated health care system for the Navajo since 1955. The Treaty of Bosque Redondo, signed by the Navajo in 1868, included the provision of health care, as well as education in exchange for tracts of land, that included the Navajo homeland or Dinetah.5
The Indian Health Service provides care with hospitals and clinics throughout the reservation. Some of the IHS facilities have been taken over by the Navajo, so there are four Navajo tribally controlled hospitals, along with one private hospital. Coordination of care for a pandemic is, therefore, more challenging to coordinate. This contributes to problems with coordination of the health care, establishing alternate care sites, accessing personal protective equipment, and providing testing sites. The Navajo Nation Council is working hard to equitably distribute the $600 million from the CARES Act.6
Dealing with the pandemic is compromised by chronic underfunding from the U.S. government. The treaty obligation of the U.S. government is to provide health care to all federally recognized Native Americans. The IHS, which has been designated to provide that care for a tribal person, gets one-third the Medicare dollars for health care provided for a person in the general population.7 Health factors have led to the public health issues of poorly controlled diabetes, obesity, and coronary artery disease, which is related to this underfunding and the high rate of COVID-19 cases. Parts of the reservation are also exposed to high levels of pollution from oil and gas wells from the coal-fueled power plants. Those exposed to these high levels of pollutions have a higher than average number of cases of COVID-19, higher than in areas where the pollution is markedly lower.8
The Navajo are having to rely on the strength and resilience of traditional Navajo culture and philosophy to confront this monster, Dikos Nitsaa’igii’ 19. We have relied on Western medicine and its limited resources but now need to empower the strength from our traditional ways of knowing. We have used this knowledge in times of adversity for hundreds of years. The Navajo elders and medicine people have reminded us we have dealt with monsters and know how to endure hardship and be resilient. This helps to ameliorate mental health conditions, but there are still issues that remain challenging.
Those having the virus go through times of shortness of breath, which produces anxiety and panic. The risk of death adds further stress, and for a family-oriented culture, the need to isolate from family adds further stress. For the elderly and young people with more serious disease having to go to the hospital alone without family, often far from home, is so challenging. Connecting family by phone or social media with those stricken is essential to decrease anxiety and isolation. Those infected with the virus can learn breathing exercises, which can help the damage from the virus and decrease emotional activation and triggers. Specific breathing techniques can be taught by medical providers. An effective breathing technique to reduce anxiety is coherent breathing, which is done by inhaling 6 seconds and exhaling for 6 seconds without holding your breath. Behavioral health practitioners are available in the tribal and IHS mental health clinics to refer patients to therapy support to manage anxiety and are available by telemedicine. Many of these programs are offering social media informational sessions for the Navajo community. Navajo people often access traditional healing for protection prayers and ceremonies. Some of the tribal and IHS programs provide traditional counselors to talk to. The Navajo access healing that focuses on restoring balance to the body, mind, and spirit.
Taking action against the virus by social distancing, hand washing, and wearing masks can go a long way in reducing anxiety and fear about getting the virus. Resources to help the Navajo Nation are coming from all over the world, from as far as Ireland,9 Doctors Without Borders, 10 and University of San Francisco.11
Two resources that provide relief on the reservation are the Navajo Relief Fund and United Natives.
References
2. Ingalls A et al. BMC Obes. 2019 May 6. doi: 10.1186/s40608-019-0233-9.
3. U.S. Census 2010, as reported by discovernavajo.com.
4. Gould C et al. “Addressing food insecurity on the Navajo reservation through sustainable greenhouses.” 2018 Aug.
5. Native Knowledge 360. Smithsonian Institution. “Bosque Redondo.”
6. Personal communication, Carl Roessel Slater, Navajo Nation Council delegate.
8. Wu X et al. medRxiv. 2020 Apr 27.
9. Carroll R. ”Irish support for Native American COVID-19 relief highlights historic bond.” The Guardian. 2020 May 9.
10. Capatides C. “Doctors Without Borders dispatches team to the Navajo Nation” CBS News. 2020 May 11.
11. Weiler N. “UCSF sends second wave of health workers to Navajo Nation.” UCSF.edu. 2020 May 21.
Dr. Roessel is a Navajo board-certified psychiatrist practicing in Santa Fe, N.M., working with the local indigenous population. She has special expertise in cultural psychiatry; her childhood was spent growing up in the Navajo Nation with her grandfather, who was a Navajo medicine man. Her psychiatric practice focuses on integrating indigenous knowledge and principles. Dr. Roessel is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She has no disclosures.