Discussions to tackle barriers to equitable sleep care in Native and rural communities

Access to sleep care can vary from one community to another—but for Native and rural populations, achieving equitable care can be particularly challenging, as disproportionately high rates of sleep-disordered breathing are compounded by limited health care access, cultural barriers, and geographic isolation.

Experts will discuss how to identify and address these gaps during the CHEST 2026 session Advancing Sleep Health Equity: Challenges in Providing Rural and Culturally Informed Care at 2:45 pm MST on Tuesday, October 20, in the Phoenix Convention Center, West Building, Room 103A. Christopher Lau, MD, a pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine specialist in the Los Angeles area, will chair the session.

When Dr. Lau relocated to Phoenix during his medical training, he began to recognize knowledge gaps in his own understanding of health equity. His interactions with the Navajo population of Arizona highlighted the challenges of accessing care in regions where major hospitals and clinics are limited—and sleep specialists even more so.

“I thought it was fitting to discuss sleep health, particularly alongside this patient population, because if we’re able to provide the best sleep care we possibly can for patients in rural communities, it will also elevate the quality of care that we can provide in all medical settings, cities, and regions,” he said.

The session will include three expert speakers, each of whom will addres a different aspect of advancing sleep health equity. Raquel Burbank Roberts, MD, Clinical Instructor at Banner-University Medical Center, will discuss cultural barriers to symptom reporting and life on the reservations; Yvette Brown-Shirley, MD, Neurologist and Assistant Professor at Barrow Neurological Institute, will explore integrating sleep screening into neurology and primary care pathways in rural regions; and Tommy Begay, PhD, MPH, founder of Beautyway Wellness and Psychosocial Health Consultation, will examine sleep care within the Indian Health Service, including challenges, innovations, and scalable models.

“Each speaker will have about 12 minutes to discuss their topic. Then, toward the end, we’ll open it up for a Q&A session,” Dr. Lau said. “I’m hoping that it solicits some brainstorming and collaboration among attendees about what their experiences have been.”

While the session will focus largely on challenges facing Native and rural communities, Dr. Lau hopes the discussion will yield strategies that can extend beyond those settings. If clinicians can improve care for patients facing some of the greatest barriers to access, he said, those resources and strategies could be applied almost anywhere.

“What excites me is that it is my way of bringing to the forefront something I’ve overlooked in the past,” he said. “I’m hoping to learn from the speakers but also share some of the insights that I noticed during my medical training in Arizona and bring them to people from other regions of the United States.”