Public Health Approach to the MMIP Crisis

A member of the Operation Lady Justice initiative, CDC is an advocate for addressing the Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis through a public health lens. The public health model calls for defining the problem; identifying risk and protective factors; developing and testing prevention strategies; and working towards widespread adoption.

CDC has worked to gather the data needed for a public health response to MMIP. This includes gathering high quality data on AI/AN people, who have been statistically invisible due to small sample sizes and racial misclassification. Only with complete data can we better understand the patterns of risk and protective factors to address MMIP.

CDC also supports incorporating Indigenous protective factors that promote cultural connectedness and community resilience and for collaborations with AI/AN experts in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), healing, public health, violence, and community health.