Health is a Human Right
Race & Place in America

Sanitation

In 1952, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Department of the Interior, established a Sanitarian Aide Program—the first hands-on public health program for American Indian communities.  Working with BIA, the Communicable Disease Center, as CDC was known at that time, led an eight-week training course attended by representatives from ten tribes. The curriculum included information about insect control, potable water supply, waste disposal, rabies control, plague control, community clean-up campaigns, and food sanitation.

A group of men, many of them young American Indians, sit around a table covered in papers, binders, a microscope, and covered glass vials.
Environmental sanitation course led by the Communicable Disease Center in Phoenix, Arizona, 1952
Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Page from a CDC bulletin with section on "Cooperation with other federal agencies" and "Assistance to universities."
CDC Bulletin article about the environmental sanitation course for American Indians in Phoenix, Arizona, 1952
Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
First page from a report titled, "Sanitation Problems of the American Indians," 1953, by H. Norman Old, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Sanitation Problems of the American Indians.  (PDF)
H. Norman Old. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1953 Feb; 43(2): 210–215.  PMC1620185
Poster from the Department of Public Health featuring an illustration of an outhouse that reads, "Your home is not complete without a sanitary unit."
Your home is not complete without a sanitary unit, recommended by the State Department of Public Health, 1936
Courtesy of the Library of Congress Work Projects Administration Poster Collection POS – WPA – ILL .01 .Y67, no