What is Wakaya?
Wakaya is a study project that promotes physical activity and healthy decision-making among Native youth.
With traditional stories as the foundation, Wakaya works toward wholistic health – a sense of well-being observed since time immemorial.
A New Partnership
Empirical data indicate American Indian youth are vulnerable to ill health due to adverse socio-demographic indices and little physical activity, sedentary behaviors and inadequate nutrition. If current patterns persist, by 2050 one out of three youth from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma will be living with Type 2 diabetes, and 70% of the Nation will be obese. Better information is needed on multilevel, outdoor-based, culturally grounded and healthful diet intervention programming for Native youth.
To address this need, the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, the University of Washington School of Social Work and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma partnered together to create Wakaya.
Wakaya: Rising Up for Native Health is an experiential, nature-based program grounded in Choctaw and Southeastern values. The program, supported by preliminary data on this approach among adults and acceptability data from youth, will assess the culturally grounded intervention’s impact on its participants’ physical activity, sedentary behavior, and healthful food habits. The research team comprises experts in American Indian health from academia as well as Choctaw Nation and collaborative efforts among two tribal Departments – Historic Preservation and Behavioral Health. Findings will be disseminated scientifically as well as shared with the Tribe for programmatic implementation. This intervention, if efficacious, will provide evidence for culture-based organizations with potential for widespread adaptation and dissemination to other tribal communities.
