Photo credit: Innocenta Sound-Kikku
As a Hawaiʻi State university-based academic collective, the Māpuna Lab serves other Hawaiʻi State-based health programs and their community-based counterparts in promoting systemic change. Inspired by a widely-adopted Native Hawaiian health framework, Nā Pou Kihi, we support transdisciplinary movement-building to promote health equity in Hawaiʻi and believe that social justice is a public health necessity. In this capacity, our work prioritizes projects that operate at the intersection of culture, healing, health and justice, seeking opportunities to create space for community-driven priorities to take root.
If you are interested in working with the Māpuna Lab, a rate schedule is available by request at [email protected]
7/1/2024-6/30/2026
Contact: Kauʻi Merritt (email: [email protected])
The original Hawai’i Opioid Initiative was launched in July 2017 by Governor David Ige in response to the national opioid crisis. Following five years of coordinated effort to reduce opioid misuse, the Māpuna Lab was contracted to complete the Hawai’i Opioid Initiative Needs Assessment and Strategic Planning for Rebranding. Using key lessons learned from the first stage of the Hawai’i Opioid Initiative and the Māpuna Lab’s evaluation, the second launch of the Hawai’i Overdose Initiative is set to launch in January 2025. This planned work will aim to highlight opioid misuse care and emergency response times in rural and primarily Native Hawaiian communities, continue to train healthcare providers to respond to the opioid crisis in a culturally-grounded manner, and to create a user-friendly data dashboard for opioid-related statistics.
7/1/2024-6/30/2026
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
The original Hawai’i Opioid Initiative was launched in July 2017 by Governor David Ige in response to the national opioid crisis. Following five years of coordinated effort to reduce opioid misuse, the Māpuna Lab was contracted to complete the Hawai’i Opioid Initiative Needs Assessment and Strategic Planning for Rebranding. Using key lessons learned from the first stage of the Hawai’i Opioid Initiative and the Māpuna Lab’s evaluation, the second launch of the Hawai’i Overdose Initiative is set to launch in January 2025. This planned work will aim to highlight opioid misuse care and emergency response times in rural and primarily Native Hawaiian communities, continue to train healthcare providers to respond to the opioid crisis in a culturally-grounded manner, and to create a user-friendly data dashboard for opioid-related statistics.
4/1/2024-3/31/2025
Ka Wehena O Ke Ao is a culturally-anchored, healing program that offers kūkākūkā sessions led by a haku hoʻoponopono from the Hawaiian & Indigenous Health & Healing Program at University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu. Kūkākūkā sessions will assist paʻahao in gaining insights into their own recovery, health and healing by teaching communication tools to use with ʻohana, hānai or ʻchosen familyʻ and support networks. The goal is to provide support for paʻahao and ʻohana who are preparing for reintegration into their homes and communities following release from custody of DCR facilities. This program acknowledges that ʻohana support is essential for paʻahao seeking employment and housing and that culturally-anchored pathways to reconciliation are necessary to ensure success and reduce recidivism.
Contact: Kauʻi Merritt (email: [email protected])
Coming Soon
4/1/2024-3/31/2025
Ka Wehena O Ke Ao is a culturally-anchored, healing program that offers kūkākūkā sessions led by a haku hoʻoponopono from the Hawaiian & Indigenous Health & Healing Program at University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu. Kūkākūkā sessions will assist paʻahao in gaining insights into their own recovery, health and healing by teaching communication tools to use with ʻohana, hānai or ʻchosen familyʻ and support networks. The goal is to provide support for paʻahao and ʻohana who are preparing for reintegration into their homes and communities following release from custody of DCR facilities. This program acknowledges that ʻohana support is essential for paʻahao seeking employment and housing and that culturally-anchored pathways to reconciliation are necessary to ensure success and reduce recidivism.
Contact: Kauʻi Merritt (email: [email protected])
Coming Soon
2/15/2022-9/29/2024
This project clusters several culturally anchored activities requested by the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health cross-sector collaboration, the Hawiaʻi Opioid Initiative. Pursuant to 226-20(a)(7), HRS, “Objectives and Policies for Socio-Cultural Advancement-Health” and Senate Concurrent Resolution (“SCR”) 103 (2019), “Urging the Inclusion of Native Hawaiian Cultural Intervention Treatment Programs, Wellness Plans, and Holistic Living Systems of Care in the State of Hawai‘i’s Response to the Rise of Misuse and Abuse of Opioids or Illicit Substances in Hawai‘i,” project activities center culturally-anchored approaches to mitigating opiate use disorder, polysubstance use disorder, and other health disparities in Hawaiʻi.
The Kanilehua Curriculum centers on a cultural and linguistic framework that teaches us to understand public health as a relational process and that everyone involved has a very important role. In the Kanilehua Framework cycle, the Kanilehua rain, named for a rain that falls in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island, falls from the sky toward the earth. Over time this rain water percolates through hard rock into the pahu moanaliha or underground aquifer.
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
A virtual summer training series on adopting cultural anchors for substance use treatment and prevention strategies. This series provides a tri-lens cultural view of substance use emphasizing “The Impacts of Colonization on Ahupuaʻa. Conceptualization, V3.0” framework introduced as best practice by the 2022 Hawaiʻi State Plan for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Department of Health. This series is guided by the following reflection questions:
What is your ahu?
What is your pua‘a?
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
Art, as a powerful tool for processing feelings of unsafety and fostering connection, takes center stage in the “Oceans of Reflection” project. By bringing together community elders and artists in culturally-centered storytelling and mural creation, the project aims to empower Micronesians to see themselves as an integral part of their new home. Beyond this, the mural seeks to reveal cultural parallels to the people of Hawai’i, weaving origin stories across the islands to evoke inherent energies of resilience and strength and avert substance misuse.
Contact: Carol Ann Carl (email: [email protected])
This culturally anchored curricula is a publicly available created for the Hawaiʻi Opioid Initiative that aims to promote cultural identity strengthening based on a culturally anchored framework as primary prevention for substance misuse for summer workshops for middle school and high school students. The Kaʻao Youth Empowerment Curriculum will introduce Hawaiʻi teachers and kumu to the power and force of kiʻi for youth on their journey or huakaʻi to transform into powerful adults in their own right. The experience of youth, from middle school ages to early high school is a site of great growth and is one of the periods of time researchers have identified as being especially transformative, determining directions for the remainder of their lives.
To workshop/pilot this program/curriculum, please contact Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohailiani at [email protected]
A needs assessment for the Hawaiʻi Opioid Initiative (HOI) was requested to gather feedback from providers about training needs, gaps in cultural competency training and its application (e.g. facilitators and barriers to providing culturally anchored care). In addition, a strategic planning session will be held to assist the HOI with improving the system of care and supporting health equity in collaboration with HOI focus area workgroup eight (8), Native Hawaiians and Substance Use. The strategic planning session will apply culturally anchored concepts, identify and recommend ways to restructure and reorganize the HOI and ultimately develop a rebrand for the HOI.
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
2/15/2022-9/29/2024
This project clusters several culturally anchored activities requested by the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health cross-sector collaboration, the Hawiaʻi Opioid Initiative. Pursuant to 226-20(a)(7), HRS, “Objectives and Policies for Socio-Cultural Advancement-Health” and Senate Concurrent Resolution (“SCR”) 103 (2019), “Urging the Inclusion of Native Hawaiian Cultural Intervention Treatment Programs, Wellness Plans, and Holistic Living Systems of Care in the State of Hawai‘i’s Response to the Rise of Misuse and Abuse of Opioids or Illicit Substances in Hawai‘i,” project activities center culturally-anchored approaches to mitigating opiate use disorder, polysubstance use disorder, and other health disparities in Hawaiʻi.
The Kanilehua Curriculum centers on a cultural and linguistic framework that teaches us to understand public health as a relational process and that everyone involved has a very important role. In the Kanilehua Framework cycle, the Kanilehua rain, named for a rain that falls in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island, falls from the sky toward the earth. Over time this rain water percolates through hard rock into the pahu moanaliha or underground aquifer.
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
A virtual summer training series on adopting cultural anchors for substance use treatment and prevention strategies. This series provides a tri-lens cultural view of substance use emphasizing “The Impacts of Colonization on Ahupuaʻa. Conceptualization, V3.0” framework introduced as best practice by the 2022 Hawaiʻi State Plan for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Department of Health. This series is guided by the following reflection questions:
What is your ahu?
What is your pua‘a?
Contact: Katherine Burke (email: [email protected])
Art, as a powerful tool for processing feelings of unsafety and fostering connection, takes center stage in the “Oceans of Reflection” project. By bringing together community elders and artists in culturally-centered storytelling and mural creation, the project aims to empower Micronesians to see themselves as an integral part of their new home. Beyond this, the mural seeks to reveal cultural parallels to the people of Hawai’i, weaving origin stories across the islands to evoke inherent energies of resilience and strength and avert substance misuse.
Contact: Carol Ann Carl (email: [email protected])
This culturally anchored curricula is a publicly available created for the Hawaiʻi Opioid Initiative that aims to promote cultural identity strengthening based on a culturally anchored framework as primary prevention for substance misuse for summer workshops for middle school and high school students. The Kaʻao Youth Empowerment Curriculum will introduce Hawaiʻi teachers and kumu to the power and force of kiʻi for youth on their journey or huakaʻi to transform into powerful adults in their own right. The experience of youth, from middle school ages to early high school is a site of great growth and is one of the periods of time researchers have identified as being especially transformative, determining directions for the remainder of their lives.
Contact: Kauilanuimakehaikalani Kealiikanakaoleohaililani (email: [email protected])
A needs assessment for the Hawaiʻi Opioid Initiative (HOI) was requested to gather feedback from providers about training needs, gaps in cultural competency training and its application (e.g. facilitators and barriers to providing culturally anchored care). In addition, a strategic planning session will be held to assist the HOI with improving the system of care and supporting health equity in collaboration with HOI focus area workgroup eight (8), Native Hawaiians and Substance Use. The strategic planning session will apply culturally anchored concepts, identify and recommend ways to restructure and reorganize the HOI and ultimately develop a rebrand for the HOI.
Contact: Katherine Burke (email:[email protected])
Kākuhihewa is the 15th aliʻi ‘aimoku (ruling chief) of O‘ahu famously named in the mele “Kaulana Nā Pua.” Kākuhihewa was a kind and friendly chief who was born in Kūkaniloko and raised in the ‘Ewa moku. His primary endeavor was farming, and it is said that his abundant harvests on O‘ahu could be smelled from Kaua‘i.
Today, there is a state office building named after him in Kapolei.