Translate complex research and policy into locally grounded, plain-language insight.
Produce public issue briefs and observatory reports focused on Hawaiʻi.
Support civic learning through educational resources and briefings.
Make the majority of our work freely available to the public.
— Sir Terry Pratchett., Author
When people talk about Native Hawaiian health, the conversation almost always lands in the same place: diabetes, heart disease, the chronic illnesses that show up in middle age.
Those numbers are real. Native Hawaiian adults carry diabetes at higher rates than the state — prevalence climbed from about 9 percent in 2011 to nearly 14 percent by 2019 before the pandemic disrupted the data. But focusing only there misses something the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' Native Hawaiian Data Book makes hard to ignore.
For a long time, the story about Native Hawaiian students went like this: they fall behind, they leave school, they don't finish.
That story is out of date.
