UH-Mānoa to study hidden health risks from Hawaiʻi’s plantation era that may surface after disasters

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has been awarded a $3.6 million federal grant to study hidden environmental health threats across Hawaiʻi, including contaminants left behind from the sugar plantation era.

The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, announced in a UH news release, will fund a joint research project with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Researchers will investigate whether wildfires and other disasters can cause pollutants left behind after decades of agricultural and industrial activity to resurface in humans and the environment.

“Wildfires can burn homes and infrastructure and disturb contaminants that have been sitting in our environment for generations,” said Ruben Juarez, professor of health economics at UH Mānoa. “By connecting environmental samples with what we find in people’s bodies and their health, we can begin to understand that full chain of exposure.”

Findings will help researchers design approaches to mitigate exposures and improve public health, the news release said.

The new research project will build upon the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study, the UH health study established after the 2023 Maui wildfires.

The grant will fund a new Health and Environment Assessment Longitudinal cohort and follow 1,000 Hawaiʻi residents over five years. It will be the state’s first systematic investigation of heart and lung health risks associated with arsenic, lead, dioxins and other “forever” chemicals.

Hawaiʻi’s past may still affect public health

For generations, the sugarcane industry shaped Hawaiʻi’s economy and landscape, leaving behind contaminants that can remain in the environment for decades. For example, arsenic was historically used in pesticides and in canec, a sugarcane-based construction material once widely used in Hawaiʻi homes and buildings.

Of particular interest to researchers is what happens when contaminants in soil and older structures are disturbed and spread by wildfires or floods.

“Hawaiʻi has environmental exposures that are deeply connected to our history, but we still know remarkably little about what they mean for health today,” said Alika Maunakea, professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at UH Mānoa.

The earlier exposure study “gave us an unprecedented window into what happens to health after a major wildfire,” he added. “Now we can build on that foundation to ask a bigger question: Are pollutants left in our environment decades ago still affecting people today, and can disasters bring those risks back to the surface?”

One major goal is to identify potential contamination hotspots near former sugarcane areas and determine whether people living near them have higher levels of pollutants in their soil, water or biological samples.

Researchers will examine whether those exposures are associated with poorer heart and lung health and whether legacy pollutants help explain health effects associated with wildfire exposure.

With wildfires increasingly reaching communities in the United States, researchers anticipate the study will have national implications, providing a model for other communities facing similar risks.