Professor Deborah Taira is a health economist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy and has extensive experience studying health equity issues for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities. The pharmacy practice professor conducts in-depth research on health disparities that impact AANHPI populations and wants to improve access to clinical trials.
As the country commemorates AANHPI Heritage Month, the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity spotlighted Taira’s expertise in a special podcast. She revealed that even though national statistics identify Hawaiʻi has the highest life expectancy of any state in the U.S., there are still huge health disparities.
“Unfortunately, Native Hawaiians live about 11 years less than Chinese in Hawaiʻi,” Taira said. “That’s a huge disparity, and I just feel like that should not exist now, not in our state of Hawaiʻi. And so, I’m passionate about trying to do what I can to correct that.”
A legacy of research
Taira has published more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts related to health disparities, cost and health outcomes Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders face. Her interest in studying health disparity started long ago with her mother, a professor of nursing who made house calls in elderly housing projects.
“I remember she brought me along with her. And she said, ‘You can learn more in 5 minutes when you go into these people’s homes. And you see in their fridge they don’t have any food or the place is filthy or whatever. You learn more about what can help the patient by actually getting to know their life circumstances,’” Taira explained.
Along with health disparities, Taira’s research also focuses on medication adherence and cost-effectiveness of cardiovascular interventions. She has worked at the Health Institute at the New England Medical Center examining outcomes from the patient perspective and spent 10 years working at Hawaiʻi Medical Service Association analyzing large administrative datasets, including cost and lab data.
