\u201cHow do you tell a community in the United States that has no running water or electricity to wash their hands?\u201d<\/p>\n
Crystal Lee\u00a0<\/a>drives hours through dust on Route 66 past the border town of Gallup, N.M., on her way through the parched road to the Navajo Nation in Arizona. She is going to see family who have made it through the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single day, I knew of someone who had passed from COVID,\u201d Lee says, staring straight ahead.<\/p>\n Even before the pandemic hit, Lee, a Navajo scientist and\u00a0assistant professor<\/a>\u00a0at the University of New Mexico College of Population Health, had tried to sound the alarm. In 2017\u00a0she\u00a0spoke at the United Nations<\/a>, warning anyone who would listen that the Navajo Nation did not have the infrastructure or resources to survive a deadly pandemic.<\/p>\n But few did, and when the coronavirus pandemic raged through the Navajo Nation in 2020, it led to the\u00a0highest death rate per capita\u00a0<\/a>in the U.S.\u2014including members of Lee\u2019s family.<\/p>\n In a new documentary short film, Lee brings us into her fight for health equity on the Navajo Nation.<\/p>\n