Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Experts at conference discuss health of Pacific Islanders.
Education, programs, research ways to fight issues, experts say
FAYETTEVILLE — Pacific Islanders can overcome the slew of health problems affecting them with community education and programs deeply rooted in their cultures, doctors and researchers at the first Gathering for Pacific Island Health conference said Tuesday.
The first inhabitants of the Pacific Islands successfully navigated thousands of miles of open water centuries before the Parthenon and the first Great Wall of China were built. They ate mixed, healthful diets and were strong enough to eventually find and settle Hawaii, the Marshall Islands and other far-flung flecks of land to the present day.
Much has changed since they set off into the blue, with most of today’s Marshallese and other Pacific Islanders afflicted by obesity, diabetes or cancer, thanks to poor diet, American nuclear tests, poverty and a long list of other health issues. But the Islanders can still return to healthier lifestyles, several speakers told the conference’s more than 100 attendees.
“We cannot survive on an island in the middle of the Pacific without resiliency,” said Nia Aitaoto, co-director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ yearold Center for Pacific Islander Health. “We are engaged, we are driven, and also we’ve
seen that we can do it. There’s a lot of hope, too.”
UAMS is hosting the three- day conference in downtown Fayetteville to cover health problems, their causes and how best to address them. Aitaoto said the conference also will help the health center prioritize its efforts and be more helpful for local Pacific Islanders.
Northwest Arkansas is home to more than 12,000 Pacific Islanders based on school, birth and work records, said Sheldon Riklon, a Marshallese family physician at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who’s joining UAMS in August as a doctor and associate professor.
Most of the area’s Pacific Islanders are Marshallese, according to the medical school. Marshallese can live and work in the United States without a visa because of a 1980s agreement that gave the U.S. continued military access to the Marshall Islands and other Pacific nations. Springdale and nearby cities hold one of the biggest populations of Marshallese outside of their home country.
Like other Pacific Islanders living on the West Coast, in Hawaii and in their home countries, those living here have disproportionately high incidences of diabetes, obesity and other illnesses. Only 10 percent are at a healthy weight, and 80 percent have high blood pressure or are approaching it, Riklon said, citing a UAMS survey of about 400 adults.
The best ways to tackle these problems are with initiatives that take into account Pacific Island cultures’ heavy emphasis on family and close- knit communities, speakers said Tuesday.
Research must shift from external observations and measurements to immersed programs that help people directly from within, they said.
For example, one program in Hawaii used traditional hula dancing to lower blood pressure and bring people in the community together. Other programs across the Pacific raised cancer awareness and screenings and lowered locals’ blood pressure and blood sugar, thanks to researchers with close ties to the community, according to several presentations at the conference.
“We need to move from what is the problem to what are the solutions,” said Joseph Keawe’aimoku Kaholokula, chairman of Native Hawaiian Health at the University of Hawaii. “People say culture is a risk factor. That’s not true.”
The task of improving health outcomes includes finding and fostering Pacific Islander health care providers and researchers, Kaholokula and others said. Having a doctor who speaks the same language and has the same background can make a huge difference for patients unfamiliar with the U. S., Riklon said. He expects to have many patients when he moves to Northwest Arkansas and said he hopes he can inspire young Marshallese to pursue higher education.
“I’m hoping I can at least be a resource to my fellow colleagues,” Riklon said. “There’s a lot of great potential.”