Navajo Nation

Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Dine'é) is the name of a sovereign Native American nation established by the Diné. The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometres) of land, occupying all of northeastern Arizona, and extending into Utah and New Mexico, and is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States. The 2000 census reported 298,215 Navajos living throughout the United States, of which 173,987 were living within the Navajo Nation boundaries. 131,166 lived in Arizona. 17,512 of these lived in Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix. Because the Navajo Nation encompasses land in three states, its Division of Economic Development has extracted census date for the Navajo Nation, as a whole, and sends a representative to the Census Board.

Illness

Several types of cancer are higher than the national average on the Four Corners Navajo Reservation. (Raloff, 2005) Especially high are the reproductive-organ cancers in teenage Navajo girls, averaging seventeen times higher than the average of girls in the United States.

Related Topics:
Cancer - Reproductive-organ

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It has been suspected that uranium mine sites, both active and abandoned, have released dust into the air and the water supply. Studies done on mice exposing them to a soluble form of uranium similar to what enters groundwater from the mines showed heavy increases in estrogen levels which could explain the increased cancer levels among Navajo girls. The amount of uranium given to the mice were half of the level permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency and one-tenth the level found in some wells on the reservation.

Related Topics:
Estrogen - Environmental Protection Agency

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Diabetes mellitus is a major health problem among the Navajo, Hopi and Pima, about four times higher than the age-standardized U.S. estimate. Medical researchers believe increased consumption of carbohydrates, coupled with genetic factors, play significant roles in the emergence of this chronic disease.

Related Topics:
Hopi - Pima

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