Author: Jennifer Sinco Keller
Associated Press
Honolulu (Associated Press)-A few months after the pandemic, data shows that Pacific Islanders have the highest infection rate in Hawaii.
But early figures did not publicly show which Pacific Islanders were most affected in different identity categories—including those with ethnic roots in Samoa, Micronesia, and other islands, but not Native Hawaiians.
According to a report from the Hawaii State Department of Health, in August 2020, when Hawaii recorded the highest number of cases, those identified as Pacific Islanders accounted for 24% of all COVID-19 cases, but only 4% of the state’s population . Academic groups and community groups.
The health equity report released in March this year showed that the two largest groups of Pacific Islanders COVID-19 cases represented were Samoans (29%) and Chukos (24%).
Before detailed data became widely available, Dr. Kapono Chong-Hanssen of Kauai printed a list of those who checked the Pacific Islander box and looked at last names in an attempt to identify specific ethnic backgrounds.
He recalled that this feat was possible on a small island, but education promotion targeting the language they spoke and more specific state data would be faster and easier to target community islanders.
In the 1990s, fearing that Native Hawaiian students would be seen as having too many Asians in universities, Esther Kia’āina worked at the federal level to separate Native Hawaiian data from Asian data. However, since then, all other Pacific Islanders have remained in one category.
Kia’āina, now a member of the Honolulu City Council, introduced a resolution passed last month urging Hawaiian government agencies to go beyond the minimum federal standards and be more specific when collecting racial data in one of the nation’s most racially diverse states.
According to US Census data, of the 1.5 million residents of Hawaii, 38% are Asians—mainly Japanese and Filipinos—26% are white, 2% are black, and many are multiracial. Native Hawaiians make up about 20% of the population.
“Compared with other parts of the United States, we are unique geographically, and very unique in terms of culture, race and ethnicity,” said Chong-Hanssen, medical director of the Kauai Community Health Center and board member of the Native Hawaiian Association. doctor. “So the federal standard doesn’t really serve our public health… and other services.”
He said that disaggregating data — data that was broken down into smaller groups — now also helps urge people to get vaccinated.
The resolution provides separate categories for Samoans, Micronesians, Tongans, Chamorros and “other Pacific Islanders.” Categories also include whites, blacks, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and “other Asians.”
Although the resolution is non-binding, Kia’āina stated that the agencies she is currently contacting all support it. She said she plans to send the resolution to city and state agencies, asking them to comply voluntarily.
She said: “We did this not only to obtain data to determine funding priorities, but to issue policies to address potential differences for whatever reason, whether it was housing, education or health.”
On the Big Island, Dr. Wilfred Alik, who is from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and speaks Marshallese, said that when talking to a Pacific Islander patient who tested positive, he put special emphasis on collecting data on specific races.
Alik, who works at Kaiser Permanente, said that although groups organized as collectives of Asian and Pacific islanders can bring quantitative power to smaller communities, access to specific data can help track contacts, especially language skills and cultural sensitivity. sex.
The organization’s chief executive Josie Howard (Josie Howard) said that in the early days of the pandemic, We Are Oceania, an organization advocating the Micronesian community in Hawaii, asked state health officials to provide specific data on Pacific Islanders.
Howard said that although they believe that data is the key to understanding how people are affected by the virus, they also worry that the data will further stigmatize Micronesians, who are often the target of racism in Hawaii.
Joshua Quint, an epidemiologist at the Department of Health, said that stigma and privacy are also concerns for state health officials, who have collected detailed disaggregated data beyond the scope of the recommendations of the city council resolution. He said there are restrictions on how to release data responsibly, including privacy issues, especially when small groups of people are involved.
He said this is one of the reasons why they did not break Pacific Islanders in the content provided on the department’s COVID-19 website.
Quint said that when there are no good population estimates for smaller groups (such as the Chukos), it is also difficult to spot differences.
According to “We are Oceania”, in Hawaii, there are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Micronesians who have migrated here in large numbers since the 1990s in search of economic and educational opportunities. The number of Chuuk from one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia is even more difficult to determine.
Quint said that when the virus case was first diagnosed in Hawaii, health officials asked those who tested positive about their travel history. However, when the community spread of the virus was established, social differences between racial and ethnic groups began to appear.
Proponents say that expanding the choice of ethnic categories is a question that transcends the pandemic.
Elisapeta Alaimaleata, executive director of Le Fetuao Samoan Language Center, said: “When we are confused…in terms of service, we are like being in a secondary position.”
For example, she said, if there is no specific data, it becomes more difficult to advocate Samoan education services in Hawaiian public schools.
Chong-Hanssen, who grew up in Iowa and was half white, a quarter Chinese, and a quarter Native Hawaiian, said that being able to mark a box that is not just “other” is good for personal identity.
“It helps more people, at least in Hawaii, if not in the greater America, to understand our existence,” he said. “These different types of Pacific Islanders are real people.”
