Garima Tyagi , MS , Graduate Research Assistant

DEVELOPING E-CIGARETTE INTERVENTIONS FOR RURAL HAWAIIAN YOUTH

Recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicates that 18 % of all middle school youth in the State currently use an electronic vapor product , ranking Hawai ‘ i first nationally among 14 states collecting data on middle school youth . In 2022 , UH Cancer Center faculty , Scott Okamoto , PhD , MSW , received $ 2.8 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop and evaluate a school-based , culturally-grounded substance use prevention intervention for Hawai ‘ i ’ s rural youth .

The project builds on Ho ‘ ouna Pono , to send a message to do what is right or righteous , a drug prevention curriculum designed for rural Hawaiian adolescents . It will update the existing Ho ‘ ouna Pono curriculum and introduce new e-cigarette and vaping prevention content , including a social and print media campaign across middle / intermediate and multi-level public and public charter schools on Hawai ‘ i Island . More than 500 students are expected to enroll in the study over the next five years .

STUDYING THE ROLE OF STRUCTURAL RACISM IN LUNG CANCER RISK

UH Cancer Center researchers , Lani Park , PhD , MPH , in collaboration with Iona Cheng , PhD , MPH , of the University of Southern California and University of California , San Francisco , received over $ 700,000 from the National Cancer Institute to study the role of structural racism on smoking behaviors and lung cancer risks .

This study will examine various measures of structural racism , such as residential segregation , to understand how persistent racial and ethnic inequities among African American , Japanese American , Latino , and Native Hawaiian adults contribute to different smoking behaviors and increased risk of lung cancer . In Hawai ‘ i , lung cancer is the second most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death in both men and women .

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