Pacific Community Research Articles

Tau fifine Niue and the use of digital health tools: An intergenerational view

Introduction: Digital health technologies are rapidly changing the landscape of how healthcare is being delivered globally.Many international health systems are using digital technology to assist with delivery of information and healthcare, to enable more affordable, accessible, and acceptable care to manage key health priorities pertaining to that population. The key to success for any digital health approach for Pacific and ethnic-specific communities is ensuring digital inclusion is considered alongside the wider influences of health (family, cultural, economic, social, environmental). Digital technology could be the enabler to reduce inequities in health outcomes in some populations. The aim of this paper is to explore how an intergenerational group of tau fifine Niue (Niue women) use digital health tools for health and wellbeing. Methods: Tutala (similar to talanoa in the Samaon language) a culturally appropriate method of conversation with Niue communities was used to guide the research approach with a tau fifine Niue (n=40). Six group tutala were undertaken with tau afine (young women), tau mamatua fifine (mothers), and tau mamatua tupuna fifine (older women). Results: Three overarching themes were identified: (1) convenience of mHealth tools; (2) access to health information and resources; and (3) digital disconnection. There were differences in the adoption and use of digital tools for health-related purposes, which varied from using the internet, text messaging and health monitoring apps. Although tau afine and tau mamatua fifine were more likely to utilise digital health tools, it was clear not all tau mamatua tupuna fifine experienced the same benefits. Conclusion: Supporting digital inclusion, digital skills, and digital health literacy for tau fifine Niue using an intergenerational approach can translate into health benefits for Niue families and communities. As more and more health services turn todigital technology to assist with delivering health information and care, it is critically important digital technology is delivered in an equitable way that benefits all people, including multi-ethnic populations in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Supporting each other: Pacific emergency care clinicians navigate COVID-19 pandemic challenges through collaboration

Supporting each other: Pacific emergency care clinicians navigate COVID-19 pandemic challenges through collaboration

Supporting language, culture and identity using Pacific picturebooks

In Aotearoa New Zealand, populations of Pacific peoples increased by 45% between 2006 and 2018 (Statistics New Zealand, 2018). Consequently, teachers need to be equipped with knowledge, skills, and resources to be able to respond to Pacific learners and communities appropriately and effectively. This article presents findings from a research project that identified 90 picturebooks featuring Pacific peoples and stories published since 2013, and analysed them for representations of Pacific culture, values, and languages. In this article, we present a thematic analysis of 10 picturebooks exploring their potential as pedagogical resources to support early childhood education (ECE) teachers in developing cultural competencies for working with Pacific learners and their families.

0162 Sleep in Pacific Ocean Populations: A Scoping Review

Abstract Introduction Sleep research focused on individuals categorized as Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander suggests that sleep deficiencies(short sleep, insomnia symptoms) are highly prevalent among adults. Given the large degree of diversity related to family origin of Pacific ocean populations and assimilation, a more robust understanding of unique risk factors related to sleep challenges for these heterogenous communities is warranted. We are conducting a scoping review of studies that examine associations of health, practice, sociodemographic, and influential mechanisms with sleep in Pacific ocean populations. Methods A literature search conducted in Medline, Embase, Psychinfo, and Cochrane encompassed three domains: sleep-related and sleep-disorder terms, oceanic island and ancestry names, and sub-population names inclusive of the geographic regions of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. The primary search retrieved 2364 articles. Studies were selected by abstract and full text analysis by one reviewer, followed by independent data extraction by four reviewers. Using a standardized form, synthesis of results and assessment of sample demographics, sampling strategy, sleep data source and findings, theoretical framework, and covariates was conducted per article. Inclusion criteria included articles with at least one quantitative sleep-related finding for a Pacific island population. We excluded non-primary research articles. Studies that categorically combined other racial/ethnic groups with Pacific ocean populations(Asian/Pacific Islander) or geographic regions(Asian-Pacific region) in reporting findings were excluded. Results Of the 99 articles included in the review, 18 included children/adolescents, 56 included adults, 13 included multiple age groups, and 12 reported no or only mean participant age. Seventy-two studies allowed participants to self-identify their major ethnic group as a single race(e.g., Tongan, Kirbati). Seventeen studies included objective methods(e.g., actigraphy). The most common sleep-related factors were issues of sleep patterns(n=51), physical health(n=43), mental health(n=28), socioeconomic deprivation(n=26), daytime sleepiness/fatigue(n=20), sleep disorders or symptoms (snoring)(n=17), sleep-supporting practices(n=9), and integration into main culture/born in US(n=3). Conclusion Preliminary results suggest that few studies have examined identifiable factors that may impact sleep within diverse Pacific ocean communities, with most studies focused on adults, self-reporting, and sleep pattern problems. Future studies should examine underlying mechanisms related to sleep deficiencies in both children and adults to better understand variability in risk across the lifespan. Support (If Any)

Representing and evaluating the travel motivations of Pacific islanders

AbstractThe mobility patterns and travel motivations of Pacific Islanders have largely been neglected by discourses and discussions on Asia‐Pacific tourism. To examine the travel preferences and travel motivations of Pacific Islanders, we administered surveys (n = 1100) across the five Pacific Island States and Territories of Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and Solomon Islands. The research offers a comparative analysis across national boundaries by highlighting commonalities and differences among the five groups. Family, kinship and religious dimensions stand out as shared and crucial factors influencing travel preferences and travel motivations across the region. Nonetheless, the research identified differences between the Pacific communities which can be explained with each country's level of socioeconomic development, political structure, geography, cultural context and globalisation. The study advances knowledge on the mobilities and travel motivations of non‐Western tourists by conceptualising the Pacific Islands from the perspective of a tourism‐generating region.

The Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium: producing pacific community-based films by Pacific filmmakers

ABSTRACT This case study will discuss the impact pathways associated with a practice-led impact and engagement project based in the Pacific through the establishment of The Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium. The project aims to support community-based and participatory media production as a creative and credible approach to influencing policy and communities in relation to gender inequality and gender-based violence in the region. The project commissioned and produced a slate of eight films, Film4Gender, by Pacific filmmakers on the theme of gender-based violence, gender inequality and Pacific responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project aims to give visibility to and build capacity amongst a network of Pacific community-based filmmakers and organisations whose work with communities addresses gender inequality in vernacular terms, with local participation and frames of reference. Supporting their work opens up alternative routes to understanding and influencing gender inequality in the Pacific. The Consortium’s approach to practice aims to foreground the potential impact of processes of production and distribution of Pacific-made films on individuals, institutions and communities. Drawing on interviews with the filmmakers, this paper demonstrates how some of the project’s first-year impact pathways reflect broader concerns of sustainability of practice and development in the region.

Facilitators and barriers to physical activity for people of Pacific heritage

This research explored the facilitators and barriers to physical activity engagement for people of Pacific Island heritage. From an experiential constructionist position, we inductively applied thematic analysis to data collected via individual fully transcribed semi-interviews. Participants were five academics or tutors of Pacific Island descent interested in physical activity for Pacific peoples. The themes developed were: Centrality of community, Physical activity is something you do and It depends on the ‘environment’. Centrality of community was a prominent theme that spoke to the high value placed on collectivism and communitarianism by Pacific communities, which may limit individual choices of physical activity participation. Such collective principles may, however, facilitate physical activity through collective responsibility for all to engage in health endeavours. Optimal facilitators of physical activity may be (i) mobilising a community response to participation in physical activity by motivating through improved understanding of the health benefits of physical activity for the community as a whole, (ii) a response role-modelled and championed by community leaders (such as church leaders) and (iii) choosing activity programmes that are group- and community-based, fun and social occasions. Approaches that target the individual, both in health benefits and individually based activities, may be less successful.

The ASB Polyfest: The Construction of Transnational Pacific Cultural Spaces in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

This paper connects historical and ethnographic research to examine the construction of physical and ideological transnational Pacific spaces within Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest-running Pacific festival and performance competition, the ASB Polyfest (The Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Cultural Festival). The festival was established through the self-determination of Māori and Pacific peoples and progressive educational leadership in Auckland during the 1960s and 1970s. First staged in 1976 as a competition amongst four community-driven “Polynesian clubs,” it has grown over four decades to involve approximately 10,000 individual participants and is a significant site for cultural transmission for transnational Pacific youth in Auckland. The origins of the festival are contextualised in the establishment of Māori and transnational Pacific communities in the southern suburbs of Auckland, who migrated for work opportunities during a period of rapid industrial growth and defied socioeconomic and geographic marginalisation. A present-day ethnography of rehearsals for the ASB Polyfest music and dance competition examines the processes by which physical spaces are transformed into socio-temporal spaces where transnational Pacific communities of practice are developed and a place of Pacific belonging is established. Ethnographic vignettes describing key milestones in festival preparation, and the culmination of these preparations at the festival competition, highlight the progression of the formation of communities of practice. These examples support the central argument that ASB Polyfest school cultural groups are uniquely constructed sociotemporal Pacific spaces where transnational Pacific identities are explored and represented.

France and Oceanian Sovereignties

ABSTRACTThe character of sovereignty in its constitution, expression, and experience across Pacific Islands has come into renewed focus over recent years. Decades after the onset of the post‐war period of decolonization and independence, non‐self governing French territories in Oceania are seeing communities chart and navigate new relationships with sovereignty conceptions and practices across local, regional, and global scales. These navigations often evidence striking articulations of authority, rights, governance, and law rooted in enduring cultural values of Pacific Islander communities. Drawing nuanced attention to divergent historical and contemporary articulations of sovereignties in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and Vanuatu, the seven articles gathered here collectively highlight the comparabilities, diversities, and trajectories in how sovereignties are being negotiated and contested by different communities within France entangled Oceania. This collection brings into visibility the complicated field of actors maintaining, transforming, or seeking to summon, establish or disestablish forms of sovereignty on the ground in everyday Oceanian worlds.

The biogeography of community assembly: latitude and predation drive variation in community trait distribution in a guild of epifaunal crustaceans.

While considerable evidence exists of biogeographic patterns in the intensity of species interactions, the influence of these patterns on variation in community structure is less clear. Studying how the distributions of traits in communities vary along global gradients can inform how variation in interactions and other factors contribute to the process of community assembly. Using a model selection approach on measures of trait dispersion in crustaceans associated with eelgrass (Zostera marina) spanning 30° of latitude in two oceans, we found that dispersion strongly increased with increasing predation and decreasing latitude. Ocean and epiphyte load appeared as secondary predictors; Pacific communities were more overdispersed while Atlantic communities were more clustered, and increasing epiphytes were associated with increased clustering. By examining how species interactions and environmental filters influence community structure across biogeographic regions, we demonstrate how both latitudinal variation in species interactions and historical contingency shape these responses. Community trait distributions have implications for ecosystem stability and functioning, and integrating large-scale observations of environmental filters, species interactions and traits can help us predict how communities may respond to environmental change.

Maintaining Cultural Identity and Community: The Need for Intergenerational Programming in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Populations

ABSTRACT This Reflection from the Field examines the need for intergenerational programming within the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population. Disenfranchisement, external migration, and changing socio-economic demands have created barriers to cultural transmission to younger generations. This article examines intergenerational programs in native populations in the U.S. and internationally and discusses potential applications to Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in Hawaii.

The small world of global marine crude oil trade based on crude oil tanker flows

Global marine crude oil trade is a direct reflection of global economic trends. This study uses the real-world historical ship automatic identification system (AIS) data from 2014 to 2017 to explore the flows of crude oil tanker trade between ports and construct a port-node global crude oil trade model. An analysis framework of “AIS data -> crude oil tanker trade flows -> port-node crude oil trade network -> port-node crude oil trade backbone network” is proposed to realize the progressive analysis of global marine crude oil trade. The global port-node crude oil trade network is a small world, in which there are multiple small world port-node trade communities. Compared with the community structure of the global port-node crude oil trade in previous years, the Middle East–Southern Africa–South Asia–Oceania–Asia Pacific community and the Southern Africa–China community have more activities in port nodes and trade links in 2017, which reflects that the Asia-Pacific region, especially East Asian countries, is making efforts to expand the Oceania and African markets and increase the diversity of crude oil import sources to ensure the security of crude oil supply and demand.

Food literacy in Pacific Island countries: a scoping review protocol.

The aim of this scoping review is to identify how food literacy is characterized and measured in the context of the Pacific Islands, and describe food literacy initiatives that may inform future policy, practice, and research. "Food literacy" is an emerging term used to describe the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required from individuals, households, communities, or nations to make healthy food choices. Given the complexity of changing food systems and the significant health challenges facing Pacific Island communities, understanding the evidence on food literacy in these communities may contribute to ensuring adequate nutrition for this population. The scoping review will examine all evidence that broadly defines, describes, measures, or explores food literacy and/or its components in residents of Pacific Island countries and territories, of any age or gender. Evidence on initiatives implemented to improve food literacy within this population will also be considered. Countries will be limited to member countries of "the Pacific Community." Key information sources to be searched for publications will include databases CABI, EBSCO, and Scopus, along with Google Scholar and Google for gray literature. Experts from relevant organizations and agencies will be contacted to locate additional sources. Results will be restricted to sources from the previous 30 years, available in English and French. Data will be extracted by two or more independent reviewers using a data extraction tool. Results will be presented with a narrative summary, accompanied by tabulated and/or charted results.

The Role of Agricultural Institutions in Providing Support Towards Sustainable Rural Development in South Pacific Island Countries

This paper examines the agricultural training in higher education institutions and tertiary colleges, their pre-eminent role and how best they can contribute to alleviate poverty in rural communities in Fiji and other South Pacific island countries. These institutions provide support through training farmers (vocational and adult education) and/or extension officers and providing researchers. Unfortunately, agricultural training institutions are not adapting to the rapid changing times early enough and have more or less maintained the traditional way of training. There is a need for agricultural institutions to amend their programs to facilitate the new emerging areas, together with new learning and teaching frameworks, establish new partnerships with the private sector in addition to expanding their representation in governance in addition to holding continuous dialogue with policymakers. Further, these institutions can potentially showcase local customs and knowledge, mirroring the regional culture, and ethical customs of the Pacific island community, as well as global movements and development forces. In reinforcing their title role as contributors to a culture of education and rural agricultural development, we suggest that agricultural institutions engage more directly and more effectively in partnerships and dialogue with other local agricultural stakeholders and their surrounding rural communities in Fiji and other Pacific island countries.

‘Neutral’ Representations of Pacific Islands in the IPCC Special Report of 1.5°C Global Warming

ABSTRACT Pacific Islands are facing some of the most immediate and direct impacts of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report of 1.5°C Global Warming (SR15) outlines the possibility that some low-lying atolls will become uninhabitable by 2030 and submerged by 2100. I analyse how and where SR15 presents climate change impacts for Pacific Islands. In doing so, I seek to highlight to what extent the IPCC’s structures and pressures influence SR15’s marginalisation of or emphasis on Pacific perspectives and challenges. The main findings that emerge from this discourse analysis are, first, that climate change impacts for Pacific Islands are largely conceptualised as relating to the physical environment and the economy. Second, SR15 frames Pacific Islands as vulnerable; however, it appears to be reflecting a shift in the literature toward recognising Pacific adaptation and resilience. The third finding is that the IPCC explicitly defines and acknowledges Indigenous and local knowledge but frames this knowledge as alternative to scientific expertise. I interpret these findings in the context of the underrepresentation of Pacific authors, the availability of published knowledge for assessment and the IPCC’s claims of neutrality. Pacific leaders and communities continue to advocate for the 1.5°C threshold investigated in SR15 and are mobilising IPCC assessments.

Carbon limitation in response to nutrient loading in an eelgrass mesocosm: influence of water residence time.

Altered primary productivity associated with eutrophication impacts not only ecosystem structure but also the biogeochemical cycling of oxygen and carbon. We conducted laboratory experiments to empirically determine how residence time (1, 3, 10 d) influences eutrophication responses in a simplified Pacific Northwest Zostera marina-green macroalgal community. We expected long-residence time (RT) systems to exhibit eutrophication impairments. Instead, we observed an accumulation of nutrients at all RTs and a shift in the dissolved inorganic carbon speciation away from CO2 (aq) with unexpected consequences for eel grass plant condition, including shoot mortality. Most metrics responded more strongly to temperature treatments than to RT treatments. No dramatic shifts in the relative abundance of Z. marina and green macro algae were detected. Z. marina shoot density proliferated in cool temperatures (12°C) with a modest decline at 20°C. Eelgrass loss was associated with high total scale pH (pHT) and CO2 (aq) concentrations of <10 μmol kg-1 CO2 (aq), but not with high nutrients. Z. marina δ13C values support the hypo thesis that carbon availability was greater at short RT. Further, very low leaf sugar concentrations are consistent with extreme photosynthetic CO2 (aq) limitation. We suggest that the effects of extremely low environ mental car bon concentrations (CO2 (aq)) and increased respiration at warm temperatures (20°C) and other physiological processes can lead to internal carbon limitation and shoot mortality. Eutrophication responses to nutrient loading are more nuanced than just light limitation of eelgrass and require additional research on the interaction of the biogeochemical environment and plant physiology to better understand estuarine ecosystem disruption.

Theatre Like an Oak in the Town Square

Theatre Like an Oak in the Town Square Courtney Elkin Mohler (bio) In the summer of 2021, the National New Play Network asked me to moderate a plenary panel titled "Decolonizing Theater's Relationship with Audiences" for their annual conference, "Growing Forward: Transcending the Transactional." The panel featured luminary artists, each working tirelessly to transform how theatre engages with community and fights for restorative justice.1 As I planned my questions, I found myself reflecting on the mighty task implied by the conference's theme and plenary's title. My thoughts drifted to several panels I have listened to or participated in over the past few years that similarly were seeking to explore theatre's relationship with "decolonization," always broadly defined. This uptick in opportunities to discuss decolonization indicates that folks are decolonization-curious, even if there is no consensus on what decolonization means in academic or artistic institutional spaces. Theatre in the United States is built on stolen lands, extracts resources, and engages with corporate capitalism. A "successful" company is touted for developing the economy of its neighborhood, which may lead to gentrification and further displacement for marginalized communities. I wanted the final beat of the plenary to wrestle with the contradictions inherent in the event's themes: Does focusing on decolonization inadvertently re-center settler colonialism? If we aren't talking about returning land to Indigenous people, what are we talking about? Due to technical difficulties and time constraints, my last question was aimed at the disembodied virtual audience, presumably theatre professionals. Into the Zoom ether, I asked, "What are you doing to Indigenize your theatrical space or practice? How does your work center the global majority Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander peoples and communities' histories, needs, and [End Page 34] stories?" What follows in the next few pages is an extension of this question, an open-ended charge to my greater family of artists, teachers, thinkers, creators. This is not a manifesto, not a guide, not even an article.I tread lightly,with a basket woven with skills not my own,full of more questions than answers. Indigenous Peoples the world over connect through space, place, and seasons by sharing a continuous appreciation for rivers of wisdom, ever-changing and always providing sustenance. Creativity is the result of neither human endeavor nor mastery but rather the simultaneous cause and effect of cooperative interaction with the cosmos, the great mystery, all our relations. More often than not, creation forms with human and animal assistance: spirit launched in beauty. Lakota visionary Paula Gunn Allen describes the impulse to create, to tell stories, to make art as holy and transformative—but not for the purpose of the individual. She writes: The tribes seek—through song, ceremony, legend, sacred stories (myths), and tales—to embody, articulate, and share reality, to bring the isolated, private self into harmony and balance with this reality, to verbalize the sense of majesty and reverent mystery of all things, and to articulate, in language, those truths that give to humanity its greatest significance and dignity.2 To writeTo create To embodyThrough songThrough ceremony The TribesThrough legend With sacred storiesTo Share To Share To Share! To bring the isolated self Into Harmony And Balance [End Page 35] How do we, as art-makers,writers, privileged RECORDERS,negotiate these two worldviews? Where do our neoliberalprofessional practices demandwe cement our knowledge intothe annals of time/make a mark/leave a Legacy? And when does such endeavorimplicitly or explicitly pillage thewisdom, resources, and spirited Beautypassed down by elders? (Here lies the hypocrisy of meritocracy:should this article remain anonymous?By: Anonymous. Or would such agesture render this work unverifiable,nonacademic, suspect?) Let us imagine, as Gunn Allen claims, that the grand purpose of art-making is transformation, bringing a community into balance through creative praxis. How would theatre embody this idea fully? Can we imagine a season, or a multiseason initiative, or a widespread multicompany, ongoing effort to develop a theatre that transforms our present community into a state of balance? How would an academic program in theatre—that held holistic communal healing as central—operate? What if...

Brand inequity in access to COVID-19 vaccines

Brand inequity in access to COVID-19 vaccines

A latent profile analysis of Pacific health values

Introduction: Pacific health models that centre Pacific values, can serve as a tool to address Pacific disparities in healthcare. In this study, we broadly draw upon the health concepts of these models to determine how Pacific values are translate across Pacific health and wellbeing. Methods: Using data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, we identified proxy indicators of common Pacific values. With these proxy indicators we developed a LP Latent Profile Analysis A to uncover subgroups of Pacific peoples based on their orientation towards each proxy indicator and their association with psychological distress. Findings: We identified four subgroups of Pacific peoples: (1) 65% of Pacific peoples identified strongly with Pacific values with low associated psychological distress (2) 18% of Pacific peoples identified moderately with Pacific values with medium associated psychological distress (3) 5% of Pacific peoples identified less with Pacific values with low associated psychological distress (4) 12% of Pacific peoples identified ambivalent with Pacific values with high associated psychological distress. Conclusions: These results suggest that Pacific values and the utility of Pacific health models are an appropriate way of framing health and wellbeing for a vast majority of our Pacific population. However, we also need to recognise the incredible diversity among our Pacific community and be understanding and accommodating of the diverse ways that Pacific peoples can express what they consider valuable.

Finding Our Way to the Island: Critical Reflections from Two Emerging Pacific Legal Academics in Aotearoa

This article offers critical reflections regarding legal scholarship on Pacific peoples in Aotearoa from two Pacific early career academics in the legal academy. It explores why very little legal scholarship focusing on the issues facing Pacific peoples in Aotearoa exists by examining and illustrating the systemic barriers that prevent Pacific legal academics from producing such scholarship. It then examines the detrimental impacts this lack of legal scholarship on Pacific peoples in Aotearoa has on both Pacific law students and Pacific communities in Aotearoa. Lastly, it imagines a Pacific jurisprudence for Pacific peoples in Aotearoa located within Pacific communities, committed to fulfilling the obligations that Pacific peoples have to Māori as Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa.&#x0D;