California Pacific Islander Well-being And COVID-19 Economic Survey (CAPIWAVES)

Research Updates

Updated January 2025
The California Pacific Islander Well-being And COVID-19 Economic Survey (CAPIWAVES) was a community engaged project that gathered information on the mental health, social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on California’s Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs). CAPIWAVES revealed that NHPIs faced mental health challenges and barriers to accessing mental health care. Relatedly, NHPI Californians also experienced major social and economic stressors while receiving few government resources during the pandemic. NHPI community leaders are beginning to access and use CAPIWAVES data to build future resilience through advocacy, education, research, policy and grantsmanship to support NHPIs in California.

Project Updates

• Webinar: Diving into CAPIWAVES: Examining Mental Well-Being and COVID-19 Economic Impacts Among NHPIs in California

Proposed Research and Background

The purpose of this project is to illuminate the mental health and socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on California’s NHPI population and to disseminate data findings to NHPI community members to respond. NHPIs were and still are the racial group in California (CA) with the highest COVID-19 case and death rates compared to any other racial or ethnic group in the state, including American Indian/Alaska Natives, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic, and White populations. Unfortunately, data on the mental health impacts of the heavy toll of COVID-19 on NHPI communities are lacking. Furthermore, studies of the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in the state have not had large enough samples of NHPI individuals to document the true social and economic toll on NHPI populations. Data for NHPIs in population-based samples are often left out or aggregated in larger “Asian/Pacific Islander” or “Other Race” categories, masking NHPI disparities and limiting community capacity to respond appropriately.

This project fills a needed data gap by unveiling the mental health and socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on the NHPI population in CA and making that data available to NHPI community members via community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods. CBPR requires close collaboration between community and academic partners. Our multidisciplinary team consists of NHPI community members and academic researchers affiliated with UCI, UCR, and UCLA who have been collaborating to address NHPI health disparities for the past three years.

• Our first aim is to conduct a survey of mental health, stress, anti-NHPI hate/discrimination, and mental healthcare access among NHPI adults in CA.
• Our second aim is to conduct a survey of the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to government or public socioeconomic supports related to income, housing, employment, and food security among NHPI adults in CA.
• Our third aim is to disseminate data to NHPI community stakeholders through research papers, an online data dashboard, a mental health report/factsheet, and a public-facing webinar.

By collecting and disseminating data on NHPI mental health in partnership with NHPI community-based organizations, we aim to inform future policies and interventions that will be culturally responsive to the mental health and socioeconomic needs of NHPI communities.

Collaborators

• UCLA Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Data Policy Lab