A team of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers are asking Maui residents to participate in a study to analyze the short- and long-term health effects of exposure to the deadly wildfires that destroyed Lahaina and parts of Kula.
The team, led by UH Mānoa Professors Ruben Juarez (UH Economic Research Organization–HMSA Distinguished Professor of Health Economics) and Alika Maunakea (professor of epigenomics, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Physiology) in partnership with several units at UH, is recruiting Lahaina and Kula residents to be part of a cohort for the longitudinal study. They will conduct tests and collect data to examine immediate exposures to environmental hazards, and then repeat the tests annually over the next five to 10 years, possibly even longer, to link these exposures to long-term health outcomes.