ANTHC Epidemiology hosts inaugural Tribal Public Health Summit 

From February 18-19, 2026, ANTHC’s Epidemiology Center hosted the first Alaska Tribal Public Health Summit. The goal: Bring together Tribal leaders and staff from across the state to work on creative, collaborative solutions for a changing public health landscape.  

ANTHC’s strategic plan for addressing the health needs of our people involves strengthening Tribal partnerships, which means investing purposefully in the improvement of public health across all Alaska Native communities. To do that, ANTHC has been conducting public health assessments both internally within the Consortium, and externally within the Alaska Tribal Health System.   

“There were many calls throughout all of the assessments to gather together to map out all of the strengths and weaknesses across the system, and what we can do as ANTHC to help set priorities for ourselves to make sure that we are filling those gaps and opportunities, and partnering well across the system,” explained Weather Potdevin, ANTHC Chief Executive Community Health Services and Tribal Health Relations.  

The Tribal Public Health Summit was designed to be an interactive, information-sharing experience for Tribal members and leaders with the following objectives: 

• Find solutions and tools for challenges confronted by Tribal Public Health. 

• Elevate the power of Tribal Health and health equity, and the impacts they have on the health of Alaska Native and American Indian populations. 

• Invest purposefully in public health infrastructure in alignment with ANTHC, Tribal, and statewide goals. 

• Create belonging and strengthen public health partnerships among the Alaska Tribal Health System. 

On the first day, after an overview of the foundations of Tribal public health authority, organizers and participants shared public health “bright spots” within their communities: what’s going right; what are some of the creative, culturally grounded public health initiatives making positive impacts within communities. 

Some examples shared included:  

• Helping communities deal with crises in a healthy way through the creation of organized talking circles.  

• Increasing cancer screenings by paying for community members’ transportation to the screening location.  

• Improving food sovereignty through the development of community greenhouse programs.  

To better understand and address resource barriers, organizers and participants collectively outlined the current state of activities and funding within their communities. 

Members from ANTHC and state government leaders then shared current programs and funding sources that Tribal health organizations (THOs), Tribal leaders, and community members can potentially avail themselves of.  

On the second day of the summit, participants were given a presentation on the cultural, political and environmental changes that have shaped the health of Alaska Native people in order to create a historical context background for how we got to where we are today. Participants shared personal stories of how they see this history continuing to shape the health of their family and community members.  

Summit attendees then split up into self-selected groups pertaining to specific public health topics during the “Alaska Cafe” exercise: an opportunity to network and discuss what those topics mean to them.  

Participants then shared their conversations to the larger group. Some share-outs included:  

• The connection between environmental health and maternal health.  

• The importance of education campaigns around vaccines. 

• Addressing sexual assault and domestic violence through the lens of rural health transformation projects. 

• Availability and security of data.  

• Use of social media.  

• Public health nursing in a post-Covid world.  

• The importance of incorporating public health themes into the education system.  

When asked, “What was the most valuable part of the event for you?” a participant shared “Really connecting with people both new, and those I’ve exchanged emails with for years, has been extremely valuable.” 

The summit ended with a consolidation of all of the information gathered, and a delineation of next steps and priorities.