Stephanie Russo Carroll discusses how getting that data about Indigenous Peoples from the state, which houses vital statistics, is difficult — and in some cases, the data is missing.

Carroll pushes for U.S. tribes — which are sovereign nations — to own and maintain control over their data, including health statistics.

The concept, known as data sovereignty, is important amid the harrowing health disparities seen in tribal people, rooted in forced assimilation dating back more than a century. Often, data gathered by and about tribes has been shared with state and federal agencies; but those same agencies haven’t always shared their tribal-related statistics in return.

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Read the full article or listen to it at the Tribune News Service (April 4, 2025)