Presentation description

Pacific Islander veteran health status is unclear because their numbers are much lower than other ethnic groups. This leads to aggregation of Pacific Islander veteran data with Asians, placed in an Other category, or omitted. We created a data cube specifically for Pacific Islander veterans to evaluate their health status in relation to non-Pacific Islanders using Veterans Affairs (VA) electronic health records. To create an initial data set, individuals were categorized as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (NHPI) by extracting self-reported race data and utilizing natural language processing to analyze clinical notes for race related indicators. We identified 227,345 NHPI veterans and 76,285 veterans who received VA healthcare in 2024. We evaluated their demographic characteristics and chronic conditions compared to non-NHPI veterans in 2024. NHPI veterans were younger (57 vs 62 years), a higher proportion were female (15% vs 11%), had higher disability (68% vs 52%) and were more likely to live in the Pacific or Western regions. Hawai'i and the Pacific had the highest proportion of NHPI veterans (31%), however the South had the largest number of NHPI veterans (30,268). After adjusting for age, sex, location and disability, NHPI veterans had higher odds of gout (74%), diabetes (50%), hypertension (31%), chronic kidney disease (31%), cardiovascular disease (21%), obesity (17%), cognitive impairment (43%), post traumatic stress disorder (38%), Alzheimer's (41%), vascular dementia (64%), chronic neurological disease (28%), traumatic brain injury or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (25%), visual impairment (24%), and substance abuse (17%); however, they had lower odds of cancer (4%). NHPI veterans have a heavy burden of chronic conditions at younger ages and this data cube will be a useful tool to track NHPI health status over time and to identify other highly prevalent health conditions. These results demonstrate target areas for intervention to help improve health.