Alaska Center for Rural Health and Health Workforce
The Alaska Center for Rural Health & Health Workforce (ACRH-HW) is committed to strengthening
and diversifying Alaska’s health workforce, especially in rural communities and underserved
populations. The Center is composed of a variety of programs, most notably the Alaska
Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) which is composed of six regional community based
centers throughout the state. As part of the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±¼Ç¼'s role
as the state's health campus, the Center supports health program planning, community partnership, diversity, inclusion and intercampus
collaboration. The Center provides the framework of statewide community partnerships
to support the full pipeline of health workforce development from career exploration
to health program training to continuing education.
Vanessa Hiratsuka from CHD and Britteny Howell from DPHS are the new Co-Directors for ÀÏ°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±¼Ç¼’s National Resource Center on Alaska Native Elders. Vanessa Hiratsuka shares her hopes for the center’s future.
Vanessa Hiratsuka from CHD and Britteny Howell from DPHS are the new Co-Directors for ÀÏ°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±¼Ç¼’s National Resource Center on Alaska Native Elders. Britteny Howell shares her journey into geriatrics.
One morning in 2005, psychology alumna Maggie Winston — then a 21-year-old hairdresser and mother of twin boys living in Kenai — woke up feeling cramps between her shoulder blades. Within an hour, she couldn’t walk.
After a two-year hiatus, ÀÏ°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±¼Ç¼ STEM Day returned to campus on October 1, drawing over 1,500 community members to the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building to celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, commonly known as STEM. Attendees, primarily children, enjoyed activities, challenges, demonstrations, tours, and planetarium shows that explored a wide range of STEM topics from biology to robotics.
More than two years into the pandemic, vaccines are widely available and most health measures have been lifted. But there are still Alaskans who have difficulty accessing vaccines or who have continued health risk in spite of them. Sondra LeClair, Health Projects Coordinator, ÀÏ°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±¼Ç¼ Center for Human Development, discusses vaccine access for individuals with disabilities in Alaska.