a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. By Lizzie WadeScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.Abigail Echo-Hawk can’t even count how many times she’s been called a troublemaker.
It’s happened at conferences, workshops, and even after she testified before Congress—all places where she has advocated for the full and ethical inclusion of American Indians and Alaska Natives in public health data. “I didn’t used to know what to say,” she says.