Bill Text: HI HCR89 | 2022 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Urging The Department Of Health To Employ The Team 6b Contact Tracing Team As Permanent Staff And Hire Other Members From The Native Hawaiian And Pacific Islander Communities In An Effort To Address The Health Inequities That Exist And Create Better Access To Culturally Relevant Programs For Native Hawaiians And Pacific Islanders.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2022-03-31 - Report adopted. referred to the committee(s) on JHA as amended in HD 1 with none voting aye with reservations; none voting no (0) and Representative(s) Eli, Hashem, D. Kobayashi, Ohno excused (4). [HCR89 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2022-HCR89-Amended.html
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.C.R. NO. |
89 |
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THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2022 |
H.D. 1 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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HOUSE CONCURRENT
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 more than any other communities in the State; and
WHEREAS, these communities together make up approximately twenty-one percent of the population but accounted for over fifty percent of the State's COVID-19 cases in 2020, and approximately thirty percent of cases in 2021 and 2022; and
WHEREAS, due to a lack of comprehensive plans by the State for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, community leaders and organizations mobilized by forming various task forces to meet the immediate needs of families within their communities who were most heavily affected; and
WHEREAS, as Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders share a colonial past that has led to generational trauma and socio-economic hardships, COVID-19 added to these inequities and social injustices; and
WHEREAS, in October 2020, the Department of Health created a contact tracing investigation team known as Team 6B to provide critical outreach to Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander communities; and
WHEREAS, Team 6B was innovative and different as it provided culturally appropriate engagement in the communities' primary languages and at a level that had not been seen previously; and
WHEREAS, throughout the past two years, Team 6B has done a tremendous amount of work in the community from creating culturally appropriate educational webinars that are in the communities' primary languages, hosting testing and vaccination pods that are inclusive of social support services to assist with community participation, and providing much needed data collection and disaggregation; and
WHEREAS, the hiring of underserved and marginalized community members by the Department of Health proved successful and drastically decreased the number of cases in the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities and provided a level of disaggregation that was not previously present; and
WHEREAS, this body recognizes the importance of creating culturally relevant programs and supports diverse hiring practices to address the inequity that exists for many underserved and marginalized communities; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2022, the Senate concurring, that the Department of Health is urged to employ the Team 6B contact tracing team as permanent staff and hire other members from the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities that have been responding to the pandemic since March 2020; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health is urged to continue hiring members from the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in an effort to address the health inequities that exist for these underserved communities and create better access to culturally relevant programs for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health is requested to create a diverse hiring plan and submit a report of its progress to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2023; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to Director of Health and the Administrator of the State Health Planning and Development Agency.
DOH; Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders; Team 6B Contact Tracers; Culturally Relevant Programs; Hiring Plan
