Keeping the Momentum of the Community Engagement Core in Health Research

From left to right: NIMHD Director Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, HIPHI staff Kathleen Corpuz, and Sairel Labasan presenting their poster at the 2025 RCMI Conference.

The Community Engagement Core (CEC) hui with Ola HAWAII, a grant with UH John A. Burns School of Medicine, continues to strengthen and sustain trust-based relationships between health researchers and community-led organizations. HIPHI supports CEC hui by serving as its fiscal manager and dedicating two staff members to help coordinate, organize, and evaluate its events and projects. 

CEC and HIPHI assist Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino communities, ensuring these groups are represented in and shaping health research. The CEC hui reviews grants, advocates for incorporating community knowledge into research design, facilitates “Report Back to Community” events, and provides training for health practitioners and researchers on community-engaged research. These efforts help strengthen community-university partnerships and elevate community-driven health initiatives. 

In March, HIPHI staff members Kathleen Corpuz and Sairel Labasan represented a poster titled Community Advocates: Lifelines for Change in Health Research at the RCMI annual conference held in Bethesda, Maryland. The presentation featured the CEC hui and HIPHI’s role in managing community contracts and expanding outreach efforts to build trust and foster meaningful partnerships in health research. They also connected with other CECs to share best practices for evaluating impact, improving community outreach, and communicating the value of university-community partnerships to a broader audience.

HIPHI is especially proud of the CEC hui’s impact and remains committed to the professional growth of its members. Often, community members have limited access to national conferences due to costly travel and conference expenses. Ola HAWAII CEC supports their attendance at public health trainings and conferences locally and nationally, expanding their knowledge, building networks, and implementing new ideas in their communities. 

In May, three CEC hui members, Dr. Sharde Freitas, Dave Rehuher, and Malialani Kanaʻiaupuni, used professional development funds to broaden their research. Malialani utilized an e-learning platform to gather feedback from Native Hawaiians on genetics and biomedical research and to educate researchers on the ethical use of genomics among clinical and bench researchers. Dave is presenting his poster on Micronesian student perspectives at the annual NCORE conference in New York. Dr. Freitas traveled to learn from cultural practitioners and researchers about water resource management and environmental health through a Native Hawaiian lens. 

HIPHI looks forward to continued collaboration with Ola HAWAII and the CEC hui to bridge stronger pathways for ethical, community-based research partnerships that create lasting impact across the islands.