Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Treatment, education part of Pacific Islander center’s first year
FAYETTEVILLE — The Center for Pacific Islander Health’s first year has been busy. It helped more than 100 Marshallese residents receive free diabetes treatment, trained 40 Marshallese to become medical interpreters and assisted several churches in planting gardens since opening last summer.
Center leaders are preparing to cap off the center’s first year with a conference that will draw about 300 Pacific Islander health care leaders to Northwest Arkansas. The Gathering for Pacific Islander Health is May 24-26 and is the first of what organizers hope becomes an annual event that could be held at different places across the country.
“It’s for us to let people know we are here, but also to find out what they want and need us to do,” said Nia Aitaoto, the center’s co-director.
She said it was important to hold the inaugural conference within the center’s first year to help them create a strategic plan and determine who will sit on its advisory council.
Pearl McElfish, director of the medical school’s research department and co-director of the Center for Pacific Islander Health, said some of the center’s first programs and initiatives will come out of the conference.
The Center for Pacific Islander Health started in July on the Fayetteville campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest. It is designed to reduce health disparities in Pacific Islander populations through community programs, research, training and policy. It is the nation’s first academic health research center to focus solely on Pacific Islander health issues.
Much of the hands-on work locally has centered around the growing Marshallese community, but the center is designed to explore issues across several additional Pacific Island nations including American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau.
McElfish said an estimated 10,000-12,000 Marshallese
live in Northwest Arkansas. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 population estimates put that number at 6,489, but McElfish said the Marshallese tend to be underreported. The medical school uses data from the state health department and school attendance records to form its estimates.
Anita Tomeing-Iban said the Springdale School District has approximately 2,400 Marshallese students. She is a translator for the district and said when she started 18 years ago there were not even 50 Marshallese students. The Marshallese woman has lived in Arkansas for 19 years.
“It’s still a growing population, and we have other minorities also moving here,” she said.
The creation of the Center for Pacific Islander Health can help the younger generation be aware of health issues affecting their community and show them possible careers in the health care industry, Tomeing-Iban said.
Type 2 diabetes is one of the biggest health issues among the Marshallese population, affecting 30 to 50 percent of the group’s local population. The medical school’s research department secured a handful of grants to work on diabetes education and treatment.
McGee Meredith, spokeswoman for the medical school’s research department, said the North Street Clinic provides free medical care for diabetic Marshallese adults without insurance and a physician. The clinic opened in November 2014 at 1125 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville, and patients are treated by
University of Arkansas for Medical Science Northwest students, under the direction of medical school faculty and physicians.
“This is a great opportunity to help an underserved population,” said Dr. Peter Kohler, vice chancellor for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest. “It’s also a great learning experience for the students.”
Kohler volunteers at the clinic and said, when it started, they were told no one would use it.
“It has been the opposite. We’re seeing three or four patients each week,” he said.
The number of patients receiving care at the North Street Clinic should increase later this year after the medical school’s physical therapy students and internal medicine residents begin to work at it, Meredith said.
Marshallese also experience high rates of hepatitis B, tuberculosis, leprosy, cancer, heart disease and obesity.
Kathy Ko Chin, president and CEO of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, said eight of the 10 countries worldwide with the highest obesity rates are in the Pacific. The health forum has offices in Washington and Oakland, Calif.
Chin said the Pacific Islander population is relatively small, so the group does not get as much attention as others in the demographic such as native Hawaiian and Asian.
Aitaoto said the Center for
“We will focus on research and make sure our research topics matter to (attendees). The good thing about the Pacific Island community being small is we know each other. The gathering gets everyone together so we can sit around a table and dialogue.” — Nia Aitaoto, co-director of The Center for Pacific Islander Health, speaking about the center’s upcoming conference
Pacific Islander Health is the nation’s first dedicated to the Pacific Islanders and hopes the May conference stirs up more attention for the group.
“We will focus on research and make sure our research topics matter to (attendees),” Aitaoto said. “The good thing about the Pacific Island community being small is we know each other. The gathering gets everyone together so we can sit around a table and dialogue.”