HP 609 Week 3 Assignment 1: Health Policy Event

Description of the meeting

This forum discussed the racism the Asian American population experiences, which was openly evidenced in April 2021. These experiences include obscene memes, physical attacks, occurring twice more in women than men, and people spitting on them. This has led to stress, depression, and anxiety amongst this population, and also exacerbated episodes of chronic diseases in medically unstable people. There has also been a drop in the Asian student enrollment for colleges and universities. The participants pointed out that this hate did not start today, however, it has been going on since Asian immigrants were denied American citizenship due to the color of their skin (Watanabe, Racism against Asian Americans, 2021). It was emphasized that the medical community and public health departments should renounce Asian American hate. Additionally, Clinicians should not be biased in their service of the population and instead of assumptions, people should look for the right data. It is predicted that if discriminated populations come together and community leaders and groups work as a team, mental health and hate trauma will be combated.

Asian Americans have inhabited the United States for centuries. This population consists of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans among many others. The Asian American population grew from 10.5 million to 18.9 million from 2000 to 2019 (Budiman and Ruiz, 2021). This population is one of the fastest growing populations. As Asians moved to the Americans, most of them carried chronic diseases with them such as cancer, Diabetes, hypertension, and mental illnesses. A study conducted on the mental health needs and services obtained for Asian Americans revealed that of the 44 percent participants that needed mental health services, 23 percent received the required services, but 7 percent never did; even those that received services, their needs were not satisfied (Jang et al., 2019). Looking at the racism that manifested in April 2021, ongoing pandemic has only worsened this situation. During the forum discussion, one of the speakers points out that racism in this population worsened after President Trump referred to the Covid-19 virus as the “Chinese virus” (Koh, 2021). On a separate occasion, this president used other names racial terms such as “kung flu “and “China plague” (Kandil and Yam, 2020).

Some of the health disparities that Asian Americans face include cardiovascular diseases, different types of cancers, and lung cancer from smoking which are the leading cause of death in this population (Elflein, 2019). It is reported that 11.7 percent of Asian men and

4.5 percent of women (cdc.org). Asian Americans are still one of the healthiest group of people, nevertheless, this populations hold a high rate of uninsured people.  Some of the reasons as to why this population does not seek medical treatment is communication, cultural beliefs, health literacy, and financial strains. Due to language barriers Asian Americans fear that their explanations will not be understood by the health providers, hence avoiding medical visits (Kim and Keefe, 2010). This population believes relies heavily on their cultural values in regard to healing. Culturally, they believe in home remedies such as hot and cold remedies for balance, use of herbs, massages, and acupuncture. They are not accustomed to western medication or treatment. This could be the reason they seek medical treatment as a last resort, but at that point their illnesses are in the last stages and usually untreatable.

How should public health and medical communities respond to the racial and health disparities that Asian Americans face? One of the ways of combatting this racism is renouncing Asian American racism (Koh, 2021). This would take community and political leaders coming together and decrying all the racism taking place. The Biden administration just passed a hate crime legislation in hopes of fighting these hate actions against the Asian American community. In addition, forming allyships with other minority groups will aid in fighting this invisibility notion (Dr. Choi, 2021).

Fighting racism and ethnic disparities will require everyone: every race getting involved in this fight for equally. This will not only be a fight for racial equality, but also equal access to healthcare, housing opportunities, education, and jobs. In this century we should be seeing more unity and togetherness, not hate.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

References

Budiman , A., & Ruiz, N. G. (2021). Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Pew Research Center.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, May 7). FastStats – Health of Asian or Pacific Islander Population. . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/asian-health.htm.

Elflein, J. (2019, July 30). Top causes of death Asians and Pacific Islanders U.S. 2017. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/233363/leading-causes-of-death-among-asians-and-pacific-islanders/.

Jang, Y., Yoon, H., Park, N. S., Rhee, M.-K., & Chiriboga, D. A. (2018). Mental Health Service Use and Perceived Unmet Needs for Mental Health Care in Asian Americans. Community Mental Health Journal, 55(2), 241–248.

Kandil, C. Y., & Yam, K. (2020, August 5). Asian Americans face dual challenges: Surging unemployment and racism. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-americans-face-dual-challenges-surging-unemployment-racism-n1235356.

Kim, W., & Keefe, R. H. (2010). Barriers to Healthcare Among Asian Americans. Social Work in Public Health, 25(3-4), 286–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371910903240704

Racism Against Asian Americans. The Forum at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. (2021, May 3). https://theforum.sph.harvard.edu/events/racism-against-asian-americans/.

Week 3 Assignment 1: Health Policy Event