Evidence was drawn from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Fiji and Vanuatu.
The report says Pacific countries are most at risk to economic and environmental shocks, and people face a number of growing threats, from NCDs to natural disasters.
It stated that increasingly when these shocks occur, they threaten to push families, and sometimes entire communities, into hardship.
The report further stated that people, communities, enterprises and governments are better equipped to pursue productive opportunities and take risks when they are not suffering or vulnerable to hardship.
The report was written as a companion piece to the 2014 World Development Report on Risk and Opportunity.
It draws on data from Household Income and Expenditure Surveys carried out in the 8 Pacific Island Countries.