Democratizing Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Data: Examining Community Accessibility of Data for Health and the Social Drivers of Health

Abstract

Making data accessible to communities is essential for developing community-driven solutions to address health inequities. In this analytic essay, we highlight the importance of democratizing data for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs)—diverse populations that historically have had little access to their data—in the context of achieving equity in health and the social drivers of health. We provide a framework for evaluating community accessibility of data, which includes concepts of data availability, salience, cost, and report back. We apply the framework to evaluate community accessibility of NHPI data from 29 federal data sources. In addition, we provide results from a survey of NHPI-serving community organizations in California conducted from December 2021 to February 2022 to assess community data needs. Findings reveal federal gaps in data accessibility, as well as NHPI community organizational needs for increased data accessibility, data saliency, and technical capacity. Furthermore, organization leads expressed concerns about data privacy, security, and misuse. We provide recommendations for data custodians to improve accessibility of timely, accurate, and robust data to support NHPI communities. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S1):S103–S111. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307503 )