Studying health in Greenland: obligations and challenges

Health research in Greenland has contributed with several findings of interest for the global scientific community and has documented health problems and risk factors of importance for planning the local health care system. The study of how health develops in small, scattered communities during rapid epidemiological transition carries prospects of global significance. The Inuit are a genetically distinct people living under extreme physical conditions. Their traditional living conditions and diet are currently undergoing a transformation, which may approach their disease pattern to that of the industrialized world, while still including local outbreaks of tuberculosis. Health research in Greenland is logistically difficult and costly, but offers opportunities not found elsewhere in the world. A long tradition of registration enhances the possibilities for research. A number of research institutions in Denmark and Greenland have conducted health research in Greenland for many years in cooperation with, among others, researchers in Canada and Alaska. National and international cooperation is supported by the Danish/Greenlandic Society for Circumpolar Health, the International Union for Circumpolar Health, and the Commission for Research in Greenland. Health news are regularly reported to international and local congresses and to the scientific journals.