Capacity building towards a Pacific-focused biomedical pipeline in a Native Hawaiian serving undergraduate institution

Public health challenges in Hawaii and the U.S-affiliated Pacific islands face increasing burdens of emerging infectious disease, and of non-communicable diseases, such as obesity and Type II diabetes. Pacific communities are at the front line of vulnerabilities in food and water supply related to climate change, and the erosion of traditional ways of life. High poverty rates combined with under-resourced health systems magnify the impact of ongoing and stochastic events affecting island communities. The human capital needs to address all of these issues spanning multiple biomedical domains, including the basic/translational/clinical/public health research continuum. Providing this pipeline with qualified and diverse undergraduates who are community-focused and academically accomplished is critical. However, the promise of these change-effecting positions are not without significant educational challenges, including negotiating tensions that arise between academia and loss of cultural identity. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander under-representation in STEM degrees currently translates to disenfranchisement and under-representation throughout the biomedical and public health fields, both in research and practice. Here, we discuss recently collated data on under-representation, and present approaches, curriculum models and practices synthesized in three areas at two Native Hawaiian-serving institutions in Hawaii. Those data include: (1) audit of academic and cultural barriers to STEM engagement, persistence and academic attainment commensurate with graduate school readiness; (2) establishment of a Hawaiian sense-of-place in STEM curriculum; and, (3) Development of approaches to contemporary skill sets (e.g. Data Science) that are relevant in the undergraduate, minority-serving institutional setting.