Minority
Psychiatry
Native Hawaiian
Research
The National Institutes of Health has initiated a program supporting Native American communities to lead public health research on overdose, substance use, and pain, including mental health and wellness. The University of Hawaii's John A. Burns School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, has received a research award through this program, known as the Native Collective Research Effort to Enhance Wellness (N CREW) Program, which funds projects led by Tribes and Native-serving organizations. The program is administered by NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and is funded through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative. The program aims to address priorities identified by Tribal Nations, focusing on culturally grounded interventions and community-led research. For the purposes of the N CREW Program, Native Americans include American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians.
The N CREW Program focuses on:
Supporting research prioritized by Native communities, including research elevating and integrating Indigenous Knowledge and culture
Enhancing capacity for research led by Tribes and Native American Serving Organizations by developing and providing novel, accessible, and culturally grounded technical assistance and training, resources, and tools
Improving access to, and quality of, data on substance use, pain, and related factors to maximize the potential for use of these data in local decision-making.
The program's first phase will fund projects to plan, develop, and pilot community-driven research and data improvement initiatives focusing on substance use and pain. NIH will establish a Native Research Resource Network to offer training, resources, and support to N CREW participants. As part of the Native Research Resource Network, the Hawaii N CREW Research Resource Center specifically aims to enhance community research capacity and pilot projects through partnerships with Native Hawaiian serving organizations in the state. The second phase, starting in fall 2026, will expand on initial efforts, fostering capacity building and implementing further community-driven research and data improvement projects aligned with the N CREW Program's goals.
For more information about the Hawaii N CREW Research Resource Center, please contact Dr. Deb Goebert goebertd@dop.hawaii.edu or Dr. Jane Onoye onoyej@dop.hawaii.edu.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. To learn how to get support for mental health, or substance use conditions, visit FindSupport.gov. If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov or call 800-662-HELP (4357).
Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institutes of Health through the NIH HEAL Initiative (https://heal.nih.gov/) under award number 1OT2DA062969. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.