The Hawaii Senate Committee on Health and Human Services Monday passed a bill that directs the Prevent Suicide Hawaii Task Force (PSHTF) to further focus its efforts on preventing suicide in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations. Specifically, HB 622 requires the task force to “examine, evaluate, and determine methods to improve education, awareness, support services, and outreach to best prevent suicides in Hawaii, particularly among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.”

In Hawaii, suicide is the most common cause of fatal injuries. For Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders aged 15-24, suicide was the leading cause of death in 2019. Additionally, the bill found that:

Amending the duties of the task force to focus on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander suicide prevention efforts is an important step toward addressing mental health needs amongst vulnerable Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities that already experience higher rates of poverty and incarceration in relation to other groups in the State.

Hawaii’s Department of Heath stated that it supports the intent of the bill but requests that the bill be deferred until 2025 because the PSHTF is already working on a strategic plan to prevent suicides that will be delivered in 2025 and is able. The Department of Health stated it would be easier to wait until the strategic report was finished and that “it will be more efficient to incorporate a new component focusing on Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations, informed by culturally appropriate resources, than to create an entirely new effort.”

Hawaii Representative, Mahina Poepoe, introduced the bill in January 2023. She stated:

[C]urrent suicide prevention programs either exclude Indigenous populations or fail to understand how colonial history affects their mental health today… It is my hope that this bill will result in identifying the unique risk factors of this population and creating culturally conscious treatment pathways and prevention methods that give our Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders a healthier sense of community and self.