Input for the AAPI White House Initiative

In response to a request from the White House AAPI Initiative, APCA has offered some suggestions to the US Department of Health and Human Services for improved health outcomes among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. These suggestions relate to creating a better system of care for individuals chronically infected with hepatitis B (similar to the current Ryan White CARE Act for individuals infected with HIV), developing a national initiative for AAPI health promotion work, ensuring translation of federal health information into Asian languages, and supporting more research into culturally proficient health interventions among AAPIs. The document is available on the “Publications” page of our website.

-Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director

White House Offers Input Opportunity for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

For those of us who have been advocating for the health and well being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, there’s an interesting opportunity to guide the federal government’s efforts in this arena. The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is coordinating an effort to provide comment on government plans to enhance services for AAPIs.

Each major government department has or is developing a plan to improve services to AAPIs. These draft plans are available on-line. The public has 30 days to provide comment once the initial draft plan is completed. Our area of interest is the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes key agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of Minority Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the National Institutes of Health. With concerted and strategic effort, these agencies can have a sizable impact on the health and well being of populations such as AAPIs suffering from health disparities such as hepatitis B, tuberculosis, tobacco use and diabetes. Communities have an obligation to participate, however. This is an important opportunity.

Here’s a link to the plan.

The deadline for comment is February 17th. I’ll provide a draft of our suggested comments in an upcoming blog entry.

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director

Addressing Disabilities Among AAPIs

One is five Americans suffers from a disability. For those of us working in the public health arena, we sometimes neglect to factor issues surrounding disability into our equation of overall wellness and health. Disabilities directly impact our ability to work with communities on other health issues, such as tobacco use, physical activity, and breast cancer screening. I’m glad that my friend, Jean Lin, and her colleagues with Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California are actively providing leadership, education and advocacy related to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders with disabilities. They are sponsoring a conference in Long Beach, California on October 29 -30 that no doubt will be well worth attending.

For our part, we’ve just begun to address disability issues among local AAPIs. For instance, earlier this year, our staff member, Ms. Emma Ditsworth, conducted a training entitled “Living Well with Disabilities” at the Chinese Senior Center. This series of workshops utilizes an evidence-based curriculum that focuses on providing the information and skills to assist disabled individuals in optimizing their health and wellness. To our knowledge, Emma conducted the first ever Chinese-language version of this workshop. For more information about this workshop, feel free to contact Emma at (480) 452-5771 or at emma@apcaaz.org
(She’s currently on vacation, so make a note to contact her after she’s back in early August).

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director

Can We Really Eliminate Health Disparities?

For the past nine months, I’ve been meeting with some folks from other health-related organizations here in the valley. We share an interest in addressing the fact that selected groups of people systematically suffer worse health outcomes (i.e., health disparities) when compared to the general population. We are in the early stages of forming a cross-cultural institute to address the problem of health disparities here in Maricopa County. Here’s an excerpt from the draft document that we’ve been developing:

“Despite steady improvement in the overall health of the U.S. population, racial and ethnic minorities, with few exceptions, experience higher rates of illness and death than non-minorities. African Americans, for example, experience the highest rates of death from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and HIV/AIDS when compared to any other U.S. racial or ethnic group. American Indians disproportionately die from diabetes, liver disease, and unintentional injuries. Hispanic Americans are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes. In addition, some Asian-American subpopulations experience rates of stomach, liver and cervical cancers that are well above the national averages.”

This paragraph succinctly describes our collective problem related to health disparities. These disparities continue to exist 25 years after the 1985 landmark report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that originally called for action on health disparities.

I personally believe that with our current science, technology and health promotion evidence base, health disparities can be eliminated. However, this is not a quick fix. Health disparities are directly associated with multiple overlapping issues, including poverty, educational attainment, the physical environment, access to health services, and personal health behaviors. Race and culture matter as well. For even when all other factors are adjusted for, people of color in this country suffer disproportionately in terms of preventable disease and death.

APCA is glad to be involved with a group of agency representatives that is willing to expend the time and resources to tackle health disparities in Maricopa County, and we thank St. Luke’s Health Initiatives for supporting our group through its TAP Program. We have a large task at hand. We believe that our cross cultural institute must advocate for social and health policies that level the playing field so that everyone – regardless of race, ethnicity, disability status or sexual identity – has an opportunity for good health. We also believe that more work is needed in the health care and public health sectors to provide culturally proficient health services.

I will continue to update this blog about our efforts. Anyone interested in this initiative should feel free to contact me for further information.

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director