ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s, Alaska developed a transport system to mitigate risks associated with remote childbirth in the Arctic. This healthcare delivery system supplies rural Alaska Native maternal patients (up to four weeks prior to delivery) with air travel, lodging, and perinatal care at distant tribal hospitals. The following comparative qualitative study explores how this social transport policy figures into sustainable provision of safe maternity services in rural Alaska.
Using theoretical and empirical comparisons, this study shows how the feature of “social responsibility” has changed from its onset to present, and questions sustainability over time. This analysis of the supply chain management (SCM) system involved in provision of maternal healthcare in Arctic Alaska also shows how a solely biomedical tact neglects to account for the uneven costs for low-risk Indigenous birthing women. Further, the findings reveal how inclusion of patient and community stakeholder input indicates a potential for value-creation in this healthcare delivery system of rural Alaska. Content analysis results from ethnographic interviews of impacted Alaska Native mothers reveal overlooked socio-cultural elements and show how social responsibility can be included in making supply chains more sustainable. This chapter helps frame perinatal healthcare service supply in remote Arctic areas with more inclusive measures.
With an anthropological perspective, the unique social and political driving forces involved in supply and value chain networks of indigenous healthcare in Arctic Alaska surface. Findings also provide a more sustainable, equitable Arctic SCM framework with benchmarks that supplement long-run efficiency of perinatal services for rural indigenous communities in Alaska.
