Our Work
We work to improve lives in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific through applied analytics and trusted partnership that drives better policy and practices. We build local workforce capacity to conduct rigorous interdisciplinary analysis informed by data, context, and evidence, grounded in sensitivity, and aligned to the public interest.
Data Analytics
Our data analytics work is interdisciplinary but share a common insistence on use of a reproducible framework with strong emphasis on data quality assurance. Analytics Team members come from different fields including epidemiology, computer science, economics, medicine, and biostatistics, but all share a passion for data science. Data science as a field requires the union of three expertises: statistical, computer science and programming, and a specific domain such as health or public policy. The team strives to incorporate innovative, efficient and exciting new approaches to the entire spectrum of the data science process from discovery, management, cleaning, analytics, transformation, and visualization and communication of results. The Analytics Team engages communities of practice through the State Epidemiologic Outcomes Work Group (SEOW) and the Hawaiʻi Pandemic Applied Modeling Work Group (HiPAM).
Substance Use & Behavioral Health
Our work on substance use and behavioral health starts with substance use issues as a focal point for which non-health sector concerns and social determinants of health become magnified, including co-occurring mental health conditions, homelessness, criminal justice, and other sectors. To that end, our work in substance use and behavioral health is necessarily intersectoral, drawing on wide stakeholder engagement and participation in DOH-convened efforts such as the Hawaiʻi Opioid Initiative and the Behavioral Health and Homelessness Statewide Unified Response Group (BHHSURG). Our work builds on a strong partnership with the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health Behavioral Health Administration and others. Our work emphasizes the use of data-driven and evidence-based approaches, grounded in local context and cultural sensitivity, to inform policies and programs and leveraging greater health and social impact locally.
Health Systems
Our work in health systems focuses on health financing, insurance, and payment to leverage health care reforms for greater integration and coordination of health care delivery, whether the integration links primary care to substance use services, or addresses fragmentation in our specialist-oriented rather than patient-centered health system. Our work on Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and public providers of last resort (eg Hawaiʻi State Department of Healthʻs Behavioral Health Administration) emphasizes the role of data and analytics to enhance quality of care, health outcomes, and considerations of health equity. Our work in health systems partners with Hawaiʻi State Department of Health Behavioral Health Administration, Executive Office of Aging, Office of Policy, Planning, and Programmatic Development, as well as the Hawaiʻi State Department of Human Services MedQUEST (Medicaid) Division and the All Payer Claims Database resource.