Why LungPATHs exists

Meet the people and partners behind LungPATHs, and the values guiding their work.

About the toolkit

LungPATHs (Lung Health Promotion for American Indian and Alaska Native People Through Human-Centered Design)

We worked with urban American Indian and Alaska Native Elders, representing different tribes, to create lung cancer screening and commercial tobacco cessation resources grounded in Indigenous values centered around family, empathy, empowerment and reclaiming culture and traditions.

Elders came together to share their knowledge, wisdom, and lived experiences with both commercial and ceremonial tobacco, as well as lung cancer screening. They developed the idea for a lung health and tobacco education toolkit: including an educational website and an accompanying medicine pouch. This website provides information about lung cancer screening, highlights the distinction between ceremonial and commercial tobacco use, and illustrates the harms associated with commercial tobacco.

Carry the teachings.
Care for your lungs.

Built with American Indian, Alaskan Native Elders and community partners, with care and respect.

Who we are

We are a small but mighty team of clinicians, researchers, and community members dedicated to creating pathways to lung health.

Two people sit close together on a light wood bench, one wearing a brightly striped shirt in red, orange, yellow, and green. In the foreground, a pair of hands rests interlocked in a lap with a beaded bracelet at one wrist.

Several urban American Indian and Alaskan Native Elders, representing different tribes, met over multiple gatherings to develop a culturally grounded resource for lung cancer screening and tobacco cessation methods. These Elders came together to conceptualize a toolkit that includes the gifting of medicine bags along with information about the harms of commercial tobacco and the benefits of lung cancer screening. Through this offering, they hope to support community members who choose to leave commercial tobacco behind and reconnect with a more sacred, traditional role of tobacco.

PATCHES Lab, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, partners with communities at high risk to improve access to lung cancer screening and prevent cancer.

The həliʔil* program (HP), an Indigenous lung health promotion program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, supports community outreach, prevention and early detection of lung cancer.

*həliʔil means become well or heal in Lushootseed.

The Seattle Indian Health Board, a community health center that specializes in providing culturally attuned, high-quality care to Indigenous people in King County.

Special thanks to

“Whether you grew up with these teachings or are finding your way back, this toolkit is for you.”