On Tuesday, June 4, 2024, VA Pacific Islands Health Care System (VAPIHCS) held two events related to the new Center for Pacific Islander Veterans Health (CPIVH), which has opened in the Airport Industrial Park Association (AIPA) Building at 3375 Koapaka Street, in Honolulu.
The CPIVH will be a centralized location where doctors and scientists will coordinate research from all over the Pacific Islands and the United States to specifically address Veterans Health in the Hawaiian Islands and throughout the Pacific, and to discover ways to improve care modalities, delivery of care, and other factors that will improve health outcomes.
“This center marks and solidifies our partnership with key researchers and organizations that are familiar with the communities that we aim to serve,” said Dr. Adam Robinson, Director VAPIHCS. “Everyone behind this project has pushed the idea and legacy of building a research community specifically aimed at reducing disparities and increasing access to care for Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and US Affiliated Pacific Islanders. It’s truly a team effort, and it will continue to be a team effort.”
The blessing of the center occurred on site at the AIPA building at 10:30 a.m. followed at 12:30 p.m. by the Celebration of the center, which was held at the Daniel K. Akaka VA Clinic at 91-1051 Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue in Kapolei. The CPIVH is the result of joint efforts between VAPIHCS and their partners in the community. VAPIHCS Chief of Research and Development is Dr. Curtis Lowery, and he has been a driving force in bringing about the center. Dr. Lowery credits many of his colleagues, both within VAPIHCS and within the larger scientific community with being supportive and helpful throughout the process.
“A lot of the work we’ll be doing is learning to understand the unique problems and then come up with programs that allow us to address them,” said Dr. Lowery. “A lot of this is just teaching health care how to get across this divide -understanding the big, cultural needs of the population- and getting information and supporters that help at a local level to access the populations of Veterans in the Pacific Islands in the best way possible.”
Many people who have worked towards having a dedicated research center for Pacific Islander Veterans Health are happy to celebrate the center opening. Some of those guests included Veteran Integrated Service Network (VISN) 21 Director Ada Clark, and Assistant to the Under Secretary for Health RimaAnn Nelson. A traditional Hawaiian Kahuna gave the blessing, and Dr. Robinson and partners untied the maile lei and officially opened the center. Not everyone that is involved in gathering funding and researchers was able to attend the blessing or the celebration, but the events were still well-attended. Dr. Ernest Moy was one of the people who was a prominent help with the project.
“Some of the work you’ve done already has shown that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Veterans experience some very unique disparities that require urgent attention,” said Dr.Ernest Moy, Executive Director of the Office of Health Equality for the Veterans Health Administration. “VA also does a lot of work around social need, and I know that many Veterans in this area face social challenges such as transportation. These are things that I think -to focus on these specific issues in the detail they deserve- we can’t do this from Washington. We’re too far away. That’s why we need you, and that’s why we support this center to make sure that all Pacific Islander Veterans get good access to care and have their needs met.”
VAPIHCS partner charity Pacific Health Research and Education Institute (PHREI) will work closely with the Center for Pacific Islander Veterans Health (CPIVH), and many who work at PHREI were in attendance for the celebration event and luncheon. One of those is the Director for PHREI, Dr. Helen Petrovitch.
“The thing I would like to see happen is -Veterans who were recruited from these islands in the Pacific Ocean- they serve our country and then they go home, and they can’t access VA health care like a Veteran anywhere else would be able to,” said Dr. Petrovitch. “I would like to see us find ways of delivering care to them because they have earned it, and with how fast things develop and improve in health care, I think we’ll be finding new ways to deliver care and new partnerships, and we’ll find ways to get the care that’s needed to the people who need it in their homes, without them having to travel. That’s the hope.”
VAPIHCS currently delivers care to the Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI). Congressional approval has just been given for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to cover the islands who are part of the Compact of Free Association (COFA). This includes the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The complexities of delivering health care across such a vast expanse of ocean is part of what the CPIVH hopes to address in their research. The center will collect data that will help tailor care to the populations that need it with respect to their cultural backgrounds, their genetic backgrounds, their physical locations, and their potential toxic exposures, in addition to co-morbidities in their specific areas. Understanding all factors at play will help to remove barriers and to find avenues to best improve the lives of United States military Veterans living across the Pacific Islands.
