Summer 2026 Update from Our CEO

Aloha,

While life continues to be filled with uncertainties, I hope you all are finding some time to soak in the long summer days. At HIPHI, we’re in the final stages of preparation for our upcoming community health conference, Navigating Change: Shaping the Future of Public Health. We hope to see you next week! We will also be hosting our annual summer social on the first day of the conference (June 23). We’re excited to present our annual awards and release HIPHI’s 2026 annual Legislative Recap. 

Our awardees this year are:

• Haku Award (Partnership)
  • Hawai‘i Island Community Health Center
  • Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies
• Kia‘i Award (Public Health Champion)
  • Hawai‘i HOME Project
  • Travis Purdy
• A‘ali‘i Award (Community Advocate Award)
  • Blake Kekoa Ramelb

In April, members of our team attended the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) Annual Conference in New Orleans. We helped to celebrate NNPHI’s 25th anniversary and reconnected with colleagues. This year, the conference included sessions on data modernization, workforce development, environmental health, tobacco, and creative cross-sector partnerships. HIPHI presented on the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai‘i’s journey and a poster featuring Community Health Worker deployment work. 

HIPHI also welcomed a few new staff to our team this quarter. Kayla Bajo is our O‘ahu Community Coalition Coordinator for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai‘i, Breon Michel is the Maui Nui Food Alliance Food Access Coordinator, and Gabby Constantino is the Community Coordinator for the Maui Coalition for a Drug-Free Youth.

We appreciate all of you who took action this legislative session! It was exciting to see two policies pass that will remove the majority of e-cigarettes being sold in Hawai‘i. Not all of our priorities passed this year, however, progress was made, and we appreciate your support as we continue to push forward and begin to prepare for next year. You can read more about key wins and challenges this session in our 2026 Post-Session Policy Update.

Thank you for your continued support and commitment to public health in Hawai‘i.

With Aloha,

Jessica Yamauchi, MA, EMBA
Chief Executive Officer