• Dr. Pirkle has a PhD in epidemiology with extensive expertise on health policy and global health and has worked in the field of oceans and human health for a decade. 

• Dr. Riley holds an SJD in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy and brings over a decade of experience in Indigenous policy advocacy to the field of oceans as a source of healing. 

• The research team includes representations from public health, social work, sociology, political science, and marine biology, as well as non-academic Native Hawaiian community members. It supports students and staff across the educational continuum from undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows.

 Blending Indigenous and Western ways of knowing and engaging in research, our current work on this Initiative contributes to emerging research showing that living near and interacting with oceans is beneficial to human health.We use a systems mapping method to encourage community partners across Hawaiʻi to share stories from their own lived experiences. Their inputs allow us to develop causal loops connecting factors that inhibit and/or enable positive, reciprocal relationships with oceans. This uncovers the deep structural and central driving forces that can be leveraged for change.

To date, the team held 8 community-participatory systems mapping sessions over a two month period (3 in Honolulu, 1 on the West of O'ahu, 2 virtual sessions, 1 in Hilo, and 1 in Kailua-Kona). In all, over 100 Hawaiʻi residents have participated in these sessions. Participants have represented diverse members of the Hawaiʻi community at large: academics, community-based organizations, government employees, non-profit employees, Indigenous leaders, kūpuna, and students. While the project is ongoing, preliminary results highlight tremendous opportunities for improved mental, spiritual, emotional and physical health. They show a strong need for increased access to and education about the ocean, better recognition that the “ocean provides”, and that engagement with the ocean, both recreationally and culturally, nurtures families and communities. 

In the next few months, the core research team plans to digest the manaʻo a moʻolelo shared with us. These insights will then be integrated with existing research to provide a holistic statewide narrative around the various factors that affect our relationship with the ocean and the interaction between these relationships and ocean health. We, then, plan to share our drafted systems map with the community to ensure the systems map we drafted correctly aligns with the intentions of our partners. The final result will later inform the overall systems mapping analysis including the areas that will contribute to the greatest amounts of change and that will help us better understand ocean benefits to health and wellbeing. The maps will be public and based on past experience, can assist community organizations in leveraging change and securing funds. 

Research with a human wellbeing perspective on oceans, coupled with program and policy work in this area is needed now and will only grow in the future. As a Strategic Initiative, we aim to support the university’s goal of excellence in research and specifically, research that is sustainability- and resilience-focused. This critical work of moving beyond simply cataloging the long list of stressors and challenges facing our oceans seeks to map out priority research and action areas by building on the strong Indigenous knowledge-bases of Pacific peoples regarding the many health and wellbeing benefits associated with our oceans. In doing so, it further seeks to provide clarity on complex causal systems in order to better direct action for meaningful and sustainable change that benefits the people of Hawaiʻi, the Pacific, and the world.