Indigenous and Western Medicine Ways Among Southern California Indians, 1900-1955

FAIN: HB-232042-16

Clifford E. Trafzer, PhD
Regents of the University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA 92521-0001)

Writing a book on the cooperation between tribal communities, doctors, and nurses to curb death and disease in southern California during the first half of the 20th century.

This project will analyze research that will culminate in a book, “Changing Medicine: Intersection of Indigenous and Western Medicine Ways Among Southern California Indians.” The project will also disseminate data in healthcare disparities, infant mortality, and crude death rates for major causes of death between 1900-1955, detailing the intersection of Native and Western medicine among 29 tribes of the Mission Indian Agency. The researcher will analyze the intersection of Indians and non-Indians regarding healthcare and medicine. The research offers examples of the ways in which public health nurses built relationships with tribal people through a network of Native and non-Native women to improve the health of children. Tribal communities and individual Natives worked cooperatively with nurses and doctors to lower crude death rates from every form of infectious disease plaguing the Indian communities, especially tuberculosis.

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