TY - JOUR
T1 - Innovation on the Reservation
T2 - Information technology and health systems research among the papago tribe of Arizona, 1965–1980
AU - Greene, Jeremy A.
AU - Braitberg, Victor
AU - Bernadett, Gabriella Maya
N1 - Funding Information:
Jeremy A. Greene is the William Henry Welch Professor and Director of the Department of the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. His research focuses on the intersection of diagnostic, therapeutic, and communications technologies within medical science and clinical practice. Institute of the History of Medicine, 1900 East Monument Street, Baltimore, Maryland 20205, USA; greene@jhmi.edu. Victor Braitberg is Assistant Professor in the Honors Interdisciplinary Faculty and Coordinator of the Health and Human Values Minor at the University of Arizona Honors College, where he serves as faculty in Human Rights Practice and as an affiliate with the Schools of Anthropology and Information. His research and teaching focus on the conceptualization, justification, and use of information and communications technologies for addressing the health and welfare of vulnerable and marginalized communities. University of Arizona Honors College, 1101 East Mabel Street, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA; victorb@email.arizona.edu. Gabriella Maya Bernadett is an enrolled member of the Tohono O’odham Nation. She received her bachelor’s degree in History of Science/History of Medicine from Yale University and her master’s degree in American Indian Studies with a concentration in education from the University of Arizona. She now works for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe as a GED instructor. Acknowledgments. The authors acknowledge support from the Greenwall Foundation Faculty Fellowship, the National Library of Medicine (G13 G13LM012988-0), and a Jacobs-Ronsenthal CIM Fellowship, as well as the collaboration of Andrew Simpson, Stephen Garber, and Charles Doarn on broader histories of the STARPAHC project and the assistance of David Piper at the Arizona Health Sciences Library. The authors wish to extend particular thanks to Bernard Siquieros and the staff of the Tohono O’odham Himdag Ki, Peter Ruiz, Rosemary Lopez, Charles Erickson, and James Justice for their generosity of time, personal experience, and support of this historical research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by The History of Science Society.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - In May 1973 a new collaboration between NASA, the Indian Health Service, and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company promised to transform the way members of the Papago (now Tohono O’odham) Tribe of southern Arizona accessed modern medicine. Through a system of state-of-the-art microwave relays, slow-scan television links, and Mobile Health Units, the residents of the third-largest American Indian reservation began to access physicians remotely via telemedical encounters instead of traveling to distant hospitals. Examining the history of the STARPAHC (Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care) project from the perspective of NASA and its contractors, from the perspective of the Indian Health Service, and from the perspective of O’odham engineers and health professionals offers a new focus, emphasizing the American Indian reservation as a site of medical research and technological development in the late twentieth century, with specific attention to the promise of information technology to address health disparities and the role of American Indians as actors in the late twentieth-century history of science, technology, and medicine.
AB - In May 1973 a new collaboration between NASA, the Indian Health Service, and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company promised to transform the way members of the Papago (now Tohono O’odham) Tribe of southern Arizona accessed modern medicine. Through a system of state-of-the-art microwave relays, slow-scan television links, and Mobile Health Units, the residents of the third-largest American Indian reservation began to access physicians remotely via telemedical encounters instead of traveling to distant hospitals. Examining the history of the STARPAHC (Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care) project from the perspective of NASA and its contractors, from the perspective of the Indian Health Service, and from the perspective of O’odham engineers and health professionals offers a new focus, emphasizing the American Indian reservation as a site of medical research and technological development in the late twentieth century, with specific attention to the promise of information technology to address health disparities and the role of American Indians as actors in the late twentieth-century history of science, technology, and medicine.
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U2 - 10.1086/710802
DO - 10.1086/710802
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091227226
VL - 111
SP - 443
EP - 470
JO - Isis
JF - Isis
SN - 0021-1753
IS - 3
ER -