Most of Alaska's 2030 health goals are off track, new assessment finds

Most of Alaska's health goals for 2030 are off track, and gaps between Alaska Native people and the rest of the state persist, according to a health assessment released Friday.

The first scorecards show one clear win. Alcohol-induced mortality met its target, falling from 25.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2018 to 22.6 in 2019. Ten other objectives improved from their baselines. The rest did not.

Those scorecards run on data from 2018 through 2021.

The Alaska Department of Health and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium produced the assessment with Tribal partners, public health professionals and community stakeholders around the state. It replaces a version published in 2019 and now accounts for COVID-19, drug overdoses, climate change and workforce shortages.

Alaska is the only state whose health improvement plan is led by a state-Tribal partnership. That plan carries 15 priority health topics and 30 objectives, and the new assessment will inform a 2026 revision of it.