Baby steps toward health equity: Accounting for the health of NHPIs using SEER and the PI Health Study

Evidence based information on the health of US Pacific Islanders is inadequate and too often the needs of this diverse population are overlooked or misunderstood.  Due to the small number of cases collected for Pacific Islanders in national health surveys and other administrative records, PI data are traditionally combined with Asian data for reporting and analytical purposes.  The aggregation of data into the API classification has failed to accurately reflect the experiences and health outcomes for PIs due to the extreme heterogeneity found within this broad grouping.  In 1999, the revised OMB 15 categories for race and ethnicity had established the requirement for PIs to be treated as a distinct racial category.  The “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” category now allows for and encourages the collection of improved measures for a greater understanding of PI outcomes.  The 2000 US Census marked the first major collection of disaggregated NHPI data followed by a series of successive federal data collection programs that collect if not report findings for disaggregated data on Pacific Islanders.  Using SEER cancer surveillance data for the 2000 through 2010 reporting periods and survey results from the 2012 Pacific Islander Health Study data, this presentation will provide evidence based results on PI health disparities, laying the foundation for evidence based policies and interventions to ultimately eliminate PI disparities in health and healthcare.