Health Promotion Among Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders

HEALTH PROMOTION AMONG DIVERSE POPULATIONS
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Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders
Heath promotion is an important process of improving the public health as it sensitizes the people of health issues and best interventions to address them. According to CITATION WHO \l 1033 (WHO, n.d.), Health Promotion ‘is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions.’ For effective promotion, the interventions must be tailored for the community. The US is a multi-ethnic and multi-racial country and the minority groups have been structurally sidelined from health promotion efforts and compounded with social, cultural and economic issues, their health status is relatively lower than national average.
What is the current health status of Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders
The health status of Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders is relatively lower than the national average and the white population. Their health status is multifactorial and pertinent to their social, economic and cultural factors. One of the issues that have contributed to their poor health is their higher rates of smoking and alcohol consumption. They are also relatively more obese than the national average and this group is structurally sidelined in access to cancer prevention and control programs according to CITATION USD18 \l 1033 (US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, 2018). Higher prevalence of cancer, higher rates of tobacco and alcohol consumption and poor health awareness have predisposed this minority group to cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, TB and hepatitis B. Additionally, there is very low awareness and control programs to address these issues. Moreover, according to CITATION USD18 \l 1033 (US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, 2018), their insurance penetration is also below national average and in in 2015, 66.4 percent of Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders in comparison to 75.8 non-Hispanic whites used private health insurance.
How is health promotion defined in this group?
Health promotion for Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders is mainly channeled through REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) CITATION Nat17 \l 1033 (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2017). REACH, the body tasked with promoting health to minorities, define health promotion as ommunity based, evidence-based, culturally tailored interventions for a broad range of health conditions pertinent to the minority group.’ CITATION Kah18 \l 1033 (Kaholokula, Ing, Look, Delafield, & Sinclair, 2018) argues that ‘Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are culturally diverse and ‘one size’ may not fit all. An intervention can include cultural elements common to multiple Pacific groups or be Pacific group-specific.’ Thus, for tis group, health promotion strategies are diverse and adapted to geographical location, culture and socioeconomic aspects of the community.
What health disparities exist for this group
This minority group has specific health differences ...