Majority of eligible Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders didn’t receive mental health care, food assistance during pandemic

Though Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) experienced negative mental health and economic impacts during the pandemic, for a range of reasons, available assistance programs and resources were underutilized, according to a new report spotlighting how COVID-19 affected NHPIs in California.

The report, based on a survey of more than 900 Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults in California between January 2024 and May 2024, found that about 1 in 3 NHPI adults (33.9%) reported needing mental health care in the prior year for help with stress, depression, or emotions. And 17% of NHPIs reported avoiding or delaying needed mental health care in the previous 12 months. 

The most commonly cited reasons for delaying or not receiving care included cost/money/not having insurance, not knowing how to find a mental health provider, not wanting friends or family to find out, being unable to take time off from work, and mental health care not being covered by their insurance plan. Only 26.8% of NHPI adults said they had at any point in their lives sought mental health care.

“This report illustrates the powerful insights we gain from data disaggregation,” said Dr. Ninez Ponce, professor and endowed chair in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management, as well as director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) and principal investigator of the NHPI Data Policy Lab. “Without knowing how different populations are affected by social conditions and how much they use available resources, it’s impossible to develop effective policies and programs.”

For more information, read the UCLA CHPR release.