One Washington-based Indigenous organization wants to close a nation-wide research gap on how many Native women sustain brain injuries during domestic and sexual abuse.
“We have many people who have experienced incredible head trauma that was never diagnosed,” Urban Indian Health Institute Director Abigail Echo-Hawk said. “They were never able to see a physician or they never got a screening for potential traumatic brain injury.”
“When I went to go look and find the most compelling and recent data on traumatic brain injury within Indian Country and with Indigenous peoples, I couldn't find anything specific,” she told SPR News.
So, UIHI is asking Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians across the country to take a survey on the topic.
In a 2021 survey from the National Congress of American Indians, nearly 85% of Indigenous women and girls reported experiencing violence. More than half reported experiencing sexual assault and experiencing violence from an intimate partner. And according to the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, many abusers intentionally inflict head trauma to cause memory loss and avoid visible marks.
Despite this, Echo-Hawk, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, said the connection between violence and TBIs in Native women hasn’t been studied nationally.
Under the second Trump administration, the federal government has slashed funding for research related to marginalized groups as part of its push against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. So, Echo-Hawk started her own survey.
“There is a reason I am doing this study without any resources, and my organization is self-funding this,” she said. “And that is because we cannot expect that [the Trump administration] would give us the resources to be able to do a quality research study on this specific problem.”
Echo-Hawk says her organization will use the findings from this survey to push for health policy changes and greater access to resources for survivors.
She recalled an Indigenous woman in her thirties who came to UIHI because she was suffering from memory loss after repeated head trauma. But Echo-Hawk said she and her team weren’t able to use certain assets to help.
“Some of the resources that we have from the Indian Health Service don't allow us to use resources that are specifically for individuals with memory loss unless they're over the age of 50,” she said.
Once the survey is complete and UIHI compiles its report, Echo-Hawk said she’ll be taking the results to elected officials.
“We will be in front of Congress. We are going to push for policy change that has inhibited our ability to use Indian Health Service dollars to serve these individuals,” she said. “And we are also going to work with other researchers across the nation so that we can use this data as just the beginning, so that we can fully address the impact of traumatic brain injury across our people. This is just a start.”
The survey goes through January 2026.
