Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 1 September 1983 — OHA Prepares for Population Survey/Needs Assessment Project [ARTICLE]

OHA Prepares for Population Survey/Needs Assessment Project

When the State Legislature created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 1980, it required that one of the general duties of OHA be the identification of the physical, sociological, psychological and eeonomie needs of Native Hawaiians*. Last year the Legislature gave OHA the financial means to meet this requirement by appropriating funds for a needs assessment survey. In June of this year OHA signed a contract with David Johnson, PH.D Sociology, to prepare and supervise the needs assessment survey, or what we eall the Population Survey/Needs Assessment (PS/NA) project. The PS/NA is designed not only to identify the needs of the Hawaiians, but also to establish a reliable estimate of the distribution of the Native Hawaiians and Hawaiians in the total population of those of Hawaiian ancestry. Although the actual survey will be conducted in 1984, we have been busy preparing for the work. Preparations have included updating a master list of addresses provided by the Department of Health's Heahh Surveillance Project (HSP), so that we will have a complete and accurate list of all the housing units in the State from whieh our sample for the survey will be drawn. Dr. Johnson has hired an army of subcontractors on the various islands to work on the updating of the master address list. Onee the updating is completed at the end of this year, the HSP will draw a random sample of households to interview for its on-going heahh survey.

HSP will ask Hawaiian households selected in the random sample if they would agree to participate in the OHA needs assessment survey. If they agree, OHA will send interviewers to conduct the survey. Under this arrangement, we will be able to analyze information from both the HSP and OHA surveys. We intend to have the PS/NA project compliment the survey that is now being conducted by the Comprehensive Services for Hawaiians Office (see article in last issue) so that we will be able to determine such things as what the Hawaiian eommunity perceives as its major needs or problems; what types of services Hawaiians seek to deal with their problems; their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with services available and barriers to the Hawaiian community in seeking services that it desires. This project is important not only because it meets a legislative requirement established by the Act that created OHA, but also because it ean fill in gaps in existing data that are either incomplete or outdated and it ean help OHA set its priorities in helping the Hawaiian community. If you are asked to participate in the OHA survey, please say yes. Ultimately the PS/NA Project will better help us help you. Mahalo. *According to the Act establishing the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a "Native Hawaiian" is any descendant of not less than one-half part of the races inhahiting the Hawaiian lslands previous to 1 778. "Hawaiians" are those who are of less than one-half Hawaiian.