Disparities in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander COVID-19 Mortality: A Community-Driven Data Response

Abstract

As of March 2021, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) in the United States have lost more than 800 lives to COVID-19—the highest per capita death rate in 18 of 20 US states reporting NHPI deaths. However, NHPI risks are overlooked in policy discussions. We discuss the NHPI COVID-19 Data Policy Lab and dashboard, featuring the disproportionate COVID-19 mortality burden for NHPIs. The Lab democratized NHPI data, developed community infrastructure and resources, and informed testing site and outreach policies related to health equity.

Opposing Role of Trust as a Modifier of COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in an Indigenous Population

“…Interestingly, we observed a significant positive association between the degree of trust in and frequency of consumption of COVID-19 information from unofficial sources only among NHPIs relative to Whites (0.177, p = 0.029, 95% CI = (0.0414,0.294); Table 3c). While the lack of trust in official government sources of information observed was anticipated based on historical and present-day political, social, and structural discrimination of NHPIs [4,17,18], the significantly higher degree of trust in unofficial sources of COVID-19 information was not expected.…”

Advancing Health Equity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders

“…Research showing NHPI communities having the highest COVID-19 death rates in the United States raised the alarm about the disproportionate impact of the virus. 3 Documenting these health disparities with disaggregated data are vital to reaching health equity. Providing translated materials and interpretive services is an essential piece to ensuring linguistic differences do not prevent access to critical resources.…”

“… 1 In early 2020, NHPIs had the highest COVID-19 case rates within specific states and counties compared with all racial and ethnic groups, 2 and of 20 states that reported fatality rates for NHPIs, 18 of these states had NHPIs representing the highest per capita fatality rate. 3 Concurrently, violence and racism plagued AA communities—increasing by 339% last year 4 —and aggravated AAs' physical and mental health problems. These dual crises highlight the urgency of addressing health equity issues for AA and NHPI communities.…”

RAGE against the Machine: Can Increasing Our Understanding of RAGE Help Us to Battle SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Pregnancy?

“…Although this community only comprise about 4% of the total population, they have accounted for 31% of the total reported SARS-CoV-2 cases in Hawai’i [ 144 ]. Thus, together, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have the highest SARS-CoV-2 death rates compared to any other ethnic group [ 145 ]. It is thought that this may be, in part, due to the numerous socioeconomic barriers that they face, including living in multigenerational housing, with a big emphasis on family as central to their cultural values, which has made it more difficult to isolate and socially distance during this pandemic [ 144 ].…”