Third National Conference on American Indian Health

Abstract

Mental health and trachoma are emerging as major health problems among American Indians, as intensive prevention and treatment programs are improving the outlook for the conquest of such systemic infectious diseases as tuberculosis. To focus attention on the increase in mental disorders and the recurrence of trachoma, once almost completely controlled on the reservations, and to consider approaches of their solution, the National Committee on Indian Health of the Association on American Indian Affairs, last fall, called its third conference on Indian health. The first conference had been held in 1953 to consider whether to recommend the transfer of Indian health services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, to the Public Health Service, a transfer which was subsequently effected. The second conference, in 1955, was concerned with questions related to the administrative change. The third conference was held in New York on Nov 19, 1964. There