Native Hawaiians, as a whole, continue to lag behind the rest of the state in the areas of social, economic, physical, emotional and cognitive well-being despite some recent gains, according to a new, 450-page study being released this month by Kamehameha Schools.

The findings in "Ka Huaka'i: 2005 Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment," gives Kamehameha and other agencies that serve Native Hawaiians a new weapon as they seek to stave off lawsuits that challenge their Hawaiians-first preference policies.

The study derives nearly all of its data from other sources. But while much of the information is not new, it binds it into one source book that gives weight to the argument that Native Hawaiians, as a category, have greater needs than other ethnic groups in the state.