Quantifying the Public Health Workforce for Hawai'i: Current Data, Measurement Complexities, and Conceptual Frameworks for Next Steps.

The public health workforce is critical to community well-being and too often overlooked. The goal of public health is to prevent disease, promote health, and protect the public from current and emerging health threats. This work is vital to the health, safety, security, and prosperity of all communities and requires an adequate workforce.

Climate Change and the Lāhainā Wildfires: Raising Global Awareness as Native Hawaiians.

On August 8th, 2023, Lāhainā, the first capital of the Kingdom of Hawai'i, experienced one of the deadliest wildfires in US history in over a century. Through historical and cultural data, the role of westernization in Maui's regional climate change is investigated. Since the 1800s, Lāhainā has fallen victim to climate-change-driven human activity.

Genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern circulating in Hawai'i to facilitate public-health policies.

Using genomics, bioinformatics and statistics, herein we demonstrate the effect of statewide and nationwide quarantine on the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) in Hawai'i. To define the origins of introduced VOC, we analyzed 260 VOC sequences from Hawai'i, and 301,646 VOC sequences worldwide, deposited in the GenBank and global initiative on sharing all influenza data (GISAID), and constructed phylogenetic trees. The trees define the most recent common ancestor as the origin.

Understanding Drivers of Variation and Predicting Variability Across Levels of Biological Organization.

Differences within a biological system are ubiquitous, creating variation in nature. Variation underlies all evolutionary processes and allows persistence and resilience in changing environments; thus, uncovering the drivers of variation is critical. The growing recognition that variation is central to biology presents a timely opportunity for determining unifying principles that drive variation across biological levels of organization.

Uncommon obstacle: management of end-stage heart failure in thrombocytopenia with absent radii (TAR) syndrome.

Thrombocytopenia with absent radii (TAR) syndrome is a rare genetic condition causing absent radial bones and thrombocytopenia. Management is generally supportive although there may be a role for platelet-stimulating agents such as romiplostim. In this case, we highlight the obstacles in managing end-stage heart failure in a patient with TAR syndrome.

An Apologetic Interpretation of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): Timeless Wisdom, Outdated Language.

Background: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has proven to be an effective aid in recovery for many people with alcohol use disorder. While constructive criticisms of AA can be beneficial to the organization, other criticisms have merely served as rhetorical devices intent on discrediting the 12-step approach.

Objectives: This paper examines six prominent critiques of AA, paying special attention to the premises, tone, and factual basis of the statements.

Indigenous Hawaiian Psychoactive Drug Use: Before European Contact, and after 1778.

This article builds on an existing body of scholarship on historical and intergenerational cultural trauma to elucidate deliberate attempts to eliminate Native Hawaiian cultural practices related to psychoactive drug use and replace them with the foreign (Western) tradition of alcohol use. This action, to instill alcohol as a component of colonial domination, was one example of the resulting assault on cultural identity that has often been overlooked, particularly in relation to transgenerational trauma in the history of Hawai'i and the Hawaiian context. In this article, we argue for the use of the term , introduced by Brave Heart, which allows for a more inclusive consideration of the many aspects of trauma.

Native Hawaiian culturally based treatment: Considerations and clarifications.

The purpose of this article is two-fold. First, it aims to understand some of the earliest documented perspectives voiced by Native Hawaiian communities and their appeals for the concept of culturally based treatment. Second, it presents research, practice, and policy considerations with the goal of evolving the base of evidence supporting cultural treatment.

HMGB1 targeting by ethyl pyruvate suppresses malignant phenotype of human mesothelioma.

Human malignant mesothelioma (MM) is an aggressive cancer linked to asbestos and erionite exposure. We previously reported that High-Mobility Group Box-1 protein (HMGB1), a prototypic damage-associated molecular pattern, drives MM development and sustains MM progression. Moreover, we demonstrated that targeting HMGB1 inhibited MM cell growth and motility in vitro, reduced tumor growth in vivo, and prolonged survival of MM-bearing mice.