University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Claire Townsend Ing, an assistant professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), received the highest National Institutes of Health award (R01) in the amount of $636,904 for the PILI ʻĀina Project and its potential impact on the health of thousands of families in Hawaiʻi.
The project works with individual, household and community levels to educate those at risk for cardiometabolic disorders, including diabetes, heart attack and stroke—all of which are in the top 10 leading causes of death in Hawaiʻi, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s not just targeting folks, telling them to eat healthier, but giving them the tools to do it.
—Townsend Ing
“I am working on trying to improve the lives of folks in the community who, over decades of colonization and unfair practices, policies and discrimination, are having adverse health outcomes,” said Townsend Ing, who serves as principal investigator.
PILI ʻĀina is housed in JABSOM’s Department of Native Hawaiian Health. It focuses on healthy eating, being physically active and managing stress and time, but goes the extra mile by introducing families to gardening and growing produce and fruits. The program will expand to the community to include hosting cooking demonstration events. Additionally, the project plans to help the community to navigate SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and other benefits.
“If cardiometabolic diseases could be solved by simply telling people to eat healthier, then we would have solved it long ago,” Ing said. “It’s a matter of lifestyle. It’s a matter of the ability to afford and access the type of healthy lifestyle that you want. It’s a matter of being able to prioritize it. It is about the individual, the family and the community. It’s not just targeting folks, telling them to eat healthier, but giving them the tools to do it.”
Finding passion from a young age
Ing’s passion for health, especially those facing health disparities, formed when she was a young girl. Her father is half black and half Okinawan. Her mother was white.
“My dad’s dad passed away when I was 12 or 13,” Ing said. “I knew the health disparities were not due to a difference in work ethic. It wasn’t for a lack of caring. He was from the Mississippi Delta and lied about his age in 1941 to get out of the delta. He ended up getting shipped out during the war. So it’s not like one grandad sat on the couch and ate bon-bons while the other ran marathons. One grandad had a harder road ahead of him because of who he was, when he was born and where he was born.”
Growing up outside Washington, D.C., in Maryland, Ing went to Pomona College in Southern California. After graduating with a bachelor’s in anthropology, she spent two years in Okinawa, Japan teaching English, learning culture and getting to know her grandmother’s family. Realizing she wanted to make a positive impact through her work, she pursued further education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and got her master’s in public health.
Ing moved to Hawaiʻi in 2006 and has been here ever since. Her work involves bringing health messages to communities that needed it the most. She received her doctor of public health from UH Mānoa’s Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health.
“At the end of the day, the week, or the year, I feel good about the time, energy, and effort that I spent on my work,” Ing said.
