The Mauli Ola Study: A Unique Academic–Community Partnership With MAʻO Organic Farms to Understand and Address Health Inequities Among Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders in Hawaiʻi

Abstract

Indigenous peoples, including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs), experience significant cardiometabolic health disparities arising in large part from rapid changes to their diets and food systems. Innovative food sovereignty initiatives led by NHPIs are needed to address these disparities. This article describes a community-based participatory research study that incorporates social and biological measures to examine the impact of an Indigenous-led land-based food sovereignty youth leadership program on health disparities among NHPI youth in Hawaiʻi. Grounded in the Indigenous knowledge that holistic health and wellbeing of people is inseparable from that of the environment and to counter rampant food insecurity in their community of Waiʻanae, Oʻahu, MAʻO Organic Farms developed a Youth Leadership Training (YLT) program that offers education, nutrition, physical activity, and access to health care. The program also engages YLT interns and their social networks in health education and research in the ongoing Mauli Ola study. Preliminary data from this study affirm the need to address the disproportionately high rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), and poor mental health conditions among young NHPIs in the Waiʻanae community, and how the YLT program may provide an effective approach to address this need. Our unique academic-community partnership underscores the importance of social and biomedical research to understand health disparities in the NHPI population, which present novel avenues to enable disease prevention. The outcomes of the Mauli Ola study may serve as a valuable model for health disparities research while leveraging ongoing social programs that support Indigenous food sovereignty.