A $15-million, five-year grant has been awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to establish the Center for Pacific Innovations, Knowledge, and Opportunities (PIKO) to improve the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Pacific People (IPP), defined as Native Hawaiians, Other Pacific Islanders, and Filipinos. These communities comprise 40% of the state’s population and have disproportionately higher rates of physical ailments and mental health conditions, compared to Caucasian and Asian people in Hawai‘i.
This Institutional Development Award Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) center represents a partnership between the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM), Hawai‘i Pacific University, Chaminade University of Honolulu, and a statewide network of community-based organizations (CBO). PIKO will be led by Joseph Keawe‘aimoku Kaholokula, PhD, professor and chair of Native Hawaiian Health, and Neal A. Palafox, MD, MPH, professor of Family Medicine and Community Health, of the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM).
PIKO will take a team-science approach to transform current research paradigms to accelerate clinical and translational research (CTR) to improve IPP health. There are seven core components to PIKO: Administrative; Professional Development; Pilot Projects Program; Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design; Community Engagement and Outreach; Clinical Research and Regulatory Support; and Tracking and Evaluation.