We have embarked on a new direction with the Tribal Connections website. Tribalconnections.org continues to be a valuable database for health related resources for Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and that will not change. The website is an important outreach tool to the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities and for promoting National Library of Medicine (NLM) online resources like MedlinePlus. What we have begun in our new phase is to provide editorial content in the form of news articles and features about health and wellness issues.

The Tribal Connections staff is attempting to do two things with this approach. First, we want to provide reader-friendly information about critical issues or topics in the news related to Native American health. We hope to make available information that will be interesting to both health professionals and to consumer health information seekers. Secondly, we would like to help raise awareness of Native American health issues in the general population and among Native Americans and Alaska Natives themselves by promoting Native American health writing, an area that has generally been overlooked by the major media.