Taking Root: Digital Storytelling to End HIV Stigma among Asian & Pacific Islander Communities

Join the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Banyan Tree Project for a webinar to commemorate the upcoming 8th annual National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on Thursday, May 17, 2012 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST. This webinar will provide an overview of HIV in Asian & Pacific Islander communities, and the impact of stigma and cultural taboos on A&PIs who are at-risk for or living with HIV. This webinar will also showcase Taking Root: Our Stories, Our Community - a community-driven digital storytelling initiative to end HIV stigma and discrimination among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is on May 19, 2012.

Speakers include:

• Kate Moraras, Senior Advisor, White House Initiative on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders
• Sapna Mysoor, National CBA Program Manager, Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center

Learning Objectives:

1. Be more knowledgeable about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in A&PI communities
2. Understand various types of stigma that affect A&PIs at-risk for or living with HIV/AIDS.
3. Understand how cultural factors affect access to and utilization of HIV services.

Register now!

 

“Taking Root: Our Stories, Our Community” is an innovative digital storytelling project produced by the Banyan Tree Project in partnership with the Center for Digital Storytelling. Taking Root examines the shame, silence, and discrimination isolating AAs and NHPIs affected by HIV from their communities. The stories are rueful, like the one told by Hatsume, a young Japanese-American woman living with HIV. They are also hopeful, like Eric Zheng’s story, which describes his journey from a young medical student recently diagnosed with HIV to his current role as an HIV physician. Taking Root stories are not testimonials or documentary-style interviews. They are short video narratives created by the storytellers themselves. 

AAs and NHPIs are the least likely race or ethnicity to get tested for HIV—over two-thirds of AAs and NHPIs have never been tested for HIV (National Health Interview Survey, 2009). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in three AAs and NHPIs living with HIV doesn’t know it. For AAs and NHPIs, the silence and shame that prevents discussions of sex or HIV also prevents them from getting tested or treated for HIV. Read more on the PRWebb website.

 

Indian Clinic Working to Prevent Suicide among Young People

The SKY Program at the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic is open to young people who qualify for the clinic's services. SKY stands for Support and Knowledge for our Youth. That's what the counselors and staff are trying to do — supply young people with the resources to know that help is always available. Bullying and suicide prevention are two of the topics SKY coordinator Suzanne Johnson plans to cover. “Our purpose is to get the word out, let (teenagers) know there's resources and where to go,” Johnson said. Mental health has become even more of a focus at the clinic in the past few years. Every program at the clinic has a behavioral health component, said Nikki Kirkendoll, the director of behavioral health at the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic. And just about every person 11 years or older who comes to the clinic receives a behavioral health screening.

In 2007, only 17 percent of clinic patients ages 16 and older were screened for depression, alcohol abuse or domestic violence. Thanks to an increase in staffing and more focus on behavioral health, in 2010, 74 percent of people 16 and older were screened for at least one of those issues. “We're really trying to not let people fall through the cracks as far as if they have something going on,” Kirkendoll said. “While they're here, they have someone who can assess and hear what's going on.” The staff members take a holistic approach to health care, assessing a patient's physical and mental health needs. Preventive programs like the SKY Program are part of that approach, helping patients find ways to relieve stress and build relationships with people who are there to listen. “Our highest priority is preventing suicide, whether it be because of bullying or substance abuse or abuse or trauma,” Kirkendoll said. “Whatever the reason, in the mental health field, that's really number one on the spectrum of care.”

Read more on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center website. Read more on NewsOK.com.

Helping Children & Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice, Child Welfare Recover from Traumatic Events

According to data released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), children and youth participating in SAMHSA community-based programs who are involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems demonstrate improved outcomes after receiving trauma-informed services. This includes reduced behavioral and emotional problems, reduced trauma symptoms, reduced substance use problems, improved functioning in school and in the community, and improved ability to build relationships.

The report, Promoting Recovery and Resilience for Children and Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems, shows that upon entering SAMHSA’s Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families (CMHI), 34 percent of children and youth involved in the child welfare system and 28 percent involved in the juvenile justice system had experienced four or more types of traumatic events. Among children and youth entering SAMHSA’s Donald J. Cohen National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative services, 67 percent involved in child welfare and 57 percent involved in the juvenile justice system had experienced four or more types of traumatic events. Traumatic events can include witnessing or experiencing: physical or sexual abuse; violence in families and communities; natural disasters; wartime events and terrorism; accidental or violent death of a loved one; and a life-threatening injury or illness. Trauma-informed services take into account knowledge about how the experience of trauma can impact the health and well-being of a person and a community.

Read more on the SAMHSA website. Download the report (pdf). Learn more about SAMHSA's trauma-informed services in the 2011 report -- Helping Children and Youth Who Have Experienced Traumatic Events (pdf). Access more resources on the SAMHSA website -- www.samhsa.gov/children.

National Women’s Health Week is May 13-19: Addressing the Needs of Women & Girls

The theme for the National Women’s Health Week (NWHW) 2012, May 13-19, is “It’s Your Time.” This is a fitting motto because NWHW empowers women to make their health a top priority. The week is a national effort led by an alliance of organizations and individuals to raise awareness about manageable steps that women can take to improve their health as well as help underserved women gain access to important preventative health care services.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recognizes the importance of sex and gender differences when addressing prevention, intervention, and treatment needs. SAMHSA created Addressing the Needs of Women and Girls: Developing Core Competencies for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Service Professionals as a tool for the field to address appropriate program models as well as workforce competencies for working with women and girls.

The week also encourages communities to support the important women in their neighborhoods in taking the following steps for longer, healthier, and happier lives:

• Visit a health care professional to receive regular checkups and preventive screenings
• Get active
• Eat healthy
• Pay attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress
• Avoid unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking and not wearing a seatbelt or bicycle helmet

Activities and events are being hosted all across the country in honor of National Women’s Health Week -- find an event in your area. Read more on the SAMHSA website. Visit the NWHW website.

The Science of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Health - Journal Supplement

The National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences has released The Science of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Health, a supplement to the American Journal of Public Health. The theme issue aims to highlight the need for and state of empirical research on racial/ethnic discrimination and its association with the health and health care received by racial/ethnic minority populations.

The issue's themed section opens with an article that reviews current measures, research approaches, data resources, and results of research on race/ethnicity-based health care discrimination. Subsequent articles center on issues of measurement, implicit bias, perception of discrimination and institutional racism. Several of the articles were written by presenters from a 2011 conference that examined the research and research methods used for investigating the role of racial/ethnic discrimination in health. This theme issue illustrates the state of the field, describes current methodology, identifies research gaps and suggests areas that should be considered for future research. 

The full text of each article is available free of charge:

• Research on Race/Ethnicity and Health Care Discrimination: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go (editorial)
• The Lived Experience of Race and Its Health Consequences
• Methods for the Scientific Study of Discrimination and Health: An Ecosocial Approach
• Under the Radar: How Unexamined Biases in Decision-Making Processes in Clinical Interactions Can Contribute to Health Care Disparities
• The State of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination in The Receipt of Health Care
• A Life Course Perspective on How Racism May Be Related to Health Inequities
• Research on Discrimination and Health: An Exploratory Study of Unresolved Conceptual and Measurement Issues
• The Associations of Clinicians' Implicit Attitudes About Race With Medical Visit Communication and Patient Ratings of Interpersonal Care
• The Influence of Implicit Bias on Treatment Recommendations for 4 Common Pediatric Conditions: Pain, Urinary Tract Infection, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Asthma
• Implicit Stereotyping and Medical Decisions: Unconscious Stereotype Activation in Practitioners' Thoughts About African Americans
• An Experimental Investigation of Possible Memory Biases Affecting Support for Racial Health Care Policy
• Discrimination and the Stress Response: Psychological and Physiological Consequences of Anticipating Prejudice in Interethnic Interactions
• Experiences and Perceptions of Medical Discrimination Among a Multiethnic Sample of Breast Cancer Patients in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, California

Read more on the National Cancer Institute website. View videos of presentations from the 2011 Science of Research on Discrimination and Health Conference. Order a printed copy of the issue online from the NCI Publications Locator.

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