This paper describes the development of a culturally grounded crisis response evaluation framework called Cultural Guideposts of Health, created for California’s American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. Built on a Culture-as-Health framework, a Guiding Coalition of Traditional Healers, Knowledge Keepers, community members, and people with lived experience worked alongside academic researchers to create a model that centers Indigenous definitions of health and wellness across four domains: Spirituality, Cultural Practices, World View, and Place-Based Sacred Sites. The result is an adaptable toolkit designed to evaluate crisis response and other interventions across diverse Tribal and urban AI/AN contexts, with pilot testing planned as a next step.
Armenta-Belen, K., Rey, L., Severns, J., Dickerson, D., Hedrick, V., Miele, G., Bhakta, M., Rutkowski, B., Freese, T., & Guiding Coalition of Traditional Healers and Knowledge Keepers (2026). Cultural Guideposts of Health: A crisis response evaluation framework for California’s diverse Indigenous communities. Journal of public health research, 15(1), 22799036251410263. https://doi.org/10.1177/22799036251410263