Description: The Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center (AASTEC) was funded to develop a comprehensive profile of injury-related mortality, morbidity, and risky behaviors in youth for the tribes in their service area. AASTEC serves 27 tribes in the Indian Health Service Albuquerque Area, including three satellite bands of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, one Pueblo in Western Texas, and two Ute tribes in Southwestern Colorado. The geographic dispersion of the communities across multiple jurisdictions posed unique challenges during the data gathering, analysis, and visualization process.
Given the numerous challenges encountered by an entity that already has public health authority, it is imperative to continue conversations for enhancing tribal-specificity in mortality and morbidity data and streamlined data sharing approaches across jurisdictions so that the provision of tribe-specific data can be handled expeditiously by Tribal Epidemiology Centers (TEC's)
Speaker: Dr. Amruta Dixit
Epidemiologist and Student Development Director
Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center
Dr. Amruta Dixit is an epidemiologist and the student development director at the Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center. She earned her PhD in infectious disease epidemiology as well as her MPH in epidemiology from the University of California Irvine. She has a decade of public health experience in a variety of settings, including extensive experience working on vector-borne and vector-mediated infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Dr. Dixit has been with AASTEC since early 2017 where she has had the opportunity to broaden her skillset and public health knowledge to encompass other elements of epidemiology, such as substance misuse and injury epidemiology. She enjoys living in New Mexico but is looking forward to being able to travel elsewhere safely again!
Speaker: Alan Sixtus Dominguez
Tribal Injury Prevention Program Coordinator
Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center
Alan Sixtus Dominguez, MCRP is Jumano Apache from his maternal side, and Rarámuri from his paternal side. He was born in Southeastern New Mexico and raised there as well as in Southwestern Texas and in Chihuahua, Mexico. Mr. Dominguez is married into the Coahuiltecan people of Coahuila, Mexico, and South Texas and is a father to a son. Sixtus obtained his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Native American Studies, Magna cum laude, with a minor in Studio Art. In 2018 he earned a Master’s degree from the UNM School of Architecture & Planning in Community and Regional Planning with a concentration in Indigenous Planning. He has professional experience in community service, education, and research. Sixtus is the Tribal Injury Prevention Program Coordinator funded by the Indian Health Service at AASTEC. His goal is to build capacity in public health within personal, professional, and tribal interests to decrease the burden of unintentional injuries.