JoAnn Tsark: Serving Native Hawaiians in public health

JoAnn Tsark remembers clearly the day when, as a student just beginning her internship for the Master of Public Health program, her preceptor sent her to sit in front of a supermarket in Waiʻanae and told her, "Just go see what's going on."

This important lesson on the need for careful observation of a community has long influenced her work, JoAnn says. She's carried that lesson throughout her career in public health, which includes work with communities on Molokaʻi and throughout the US-affiliated Pacific, with the nonprofit Papa Ola Lōkahi, the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM).

"That day was instrumental in my becoming a better observer," JoAnn says. "I learned to start by thinking about where I could fit in, and what I could contribute to this community."

She completed her MPH in 1984, and today, as director of the community-based core of a research expansion program involving faculty from across UHM, she continues her work to reduce health disparities for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. In every place she has worked, she has been touched by the efforts of people in these communities to develop health programs and solve problems.

"Working on Molokaʻi and in Waiʻanae taught me the importance of being of service, and being a good listener," JoAnn says. "Public health workers are instruments and can support the work of the community."

JoAnn is particularly proud of winning a grant from the National Cancer Institute to fund cancer awareness, research, and training for Native Hawaiians. This initiative, based at Papa Ola Lōkahi, was called ‘Imi Hale Native Hawaiian Cancer Network and operated for 17 years. JoAnn served as project director and also led efforts to develop more than 100 educational materials and curricula tailored for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations. She likes to remind people that this award was the result of 10 years of discussion and planning by like-minded Hawaiians who recognized the disparate cancer burden among Native Hawaiians and the need to build capacity within the Hawaiian community to address it.

The program was special because it brought federal grant dollars directly to a community-based nonprofit organization. "We got the resources flowing right into the community, where it is needed the most," JoAnn says.

Her work is driven by a vision of helping communities reach their goals. "In Hawaiʻi, many communities are finding a new desire to take control of their own place and their own space," she says. "These community activists don't want to settle for someone else's model of what their health should be."

A career in public health means being of service in any way one can, she says. "When you enter a community group, find ways to be helpful – clean up, take notes, and help kūpuna carry their bags into the office. Then you can figure out how to use your public health talents to help." Communities often face systemic barriers to the resources they need, and this is where public health workers can step in.

Meeting people where they are and showing respect are key. "Public health starts with building relationships," she says.

University of Hawai‘i Alumni