A new free digital textbook designed to promote child health across the Pacific Region has been published by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL). The Pacific Food Systems for Children’s Healthy Living Open Educational Resource textbook features nine chapters examining the region’s agricultural landscape, food environment, and consumer behavior.
The resource draws on Indigenous culture and regional lived experiences and includes case studies from Hawaiʻi, Alaska, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam.
CHL is a program of the UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR).
Trainees from the Children’s Healthy Living Food Systems program served as lead content writers for their respective jurisdictions.
The book is a collaboration among the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, University of Alaska Fairbanks, American Samoa Community College, Northern Marianas College, and the University of Guam. It serves as an educational tool to build local capacity and train future leaders using systems science and community engagement to prevent nutrition-related chronic conditions.
An accompanying free Instructor Resource Website offering lecture slides, assignments and question banks will be available to faculty and instructors in early 2027. Register here to use the website when it is released.
Support for the project was provided by the UH Mānoa Outreach College, CTAHR, UH Cancer Center, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alongside additional grant and scholarship sponsors.
