A comprehensive review of 126 published research papers on health conditions of native populations in far-northern climates by University of Oregon anthropologist Josh Snodgrass captures the present and raises warning flags for the future.

The invited review — online in advance of publication in November's Annual Review of Anthropology — drew primarily from epidemiological studies of indigenous populations, including eight of Snodgrass' own papers focusing on Siberia. Two key messages emerged:

• Of approximately 10 million natives who live in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, the Sami of Scandinavia are the healthiest, but their indigenous neighbors across northern Russia show "extremely poor health indicators and marked disparities compared with Russia as a whole."

• Most of the indigenous populations in the five geographically defined regions — Alaska in the United States, northern Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Finland) and northern Russia — now, however, face growing health risks particularly in the face of expanding economic development involving natural resources and a rapidly warming climate.

The research "emphasizes the need to consider regional adaptive patterns when investigating global health variation," Snodgrass said. "It also underscores the importance of developing innovative models to understand disease patterns that integrate environmental exposure with underlying differences in susceptibility."

- from a story by the UO Office of Strategic Communications