Integrated Care for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders: Making Research work to improve our health

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ABSTRACT The National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA), the Asian American Center on Disparities Research (AACDR), and the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) will develop a long range research agenda to address one of the most important health issues facing this country: the elimination of disparities in the quality of health and mental health care outcomes for some our most vulnerable populations that include refugee and immigrant and other underserved Asian American Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs). The conferences will also look at research that assesses the impact of mental health on the person’s overall health. NAAPIMHA, AACDR and the AAPA will develop a three year research conference agenda that assesses key aspects of culturally and linguistically appropriate models of integrated care . While each conference can stand on its own and will be applied for separately, developing a coordinated long term approach allows each conference to build on each other to add substantive information to the national dialogue to address AHRQ’s commitment to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care of underserved populations that includes Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. It is important to conduct this type of research as AANHPIs are either missing from research altogether or are identified as other or merely Asian American. This approach fails to accurately look at the unique and often challenging health problems faced by the target population and masks differences between subpopulations. This makes it difficult to ascertain the magnitude of the problems, the impact of historical trauma and mental health conditions on the person’s overall health. Findings from this research have important implication for development of culturally and linguistically appropriate care, development of policies, and redefining training efforts to improve the current workforce. The first-year conference will be held at New York University School of Medicine and will focus on current integrated care research. The conference will also identify gaps in research based on feedback from providers, consumers and community members. This will add to the dialogue of “What’s next” in improving research and will lay the foundation for selecting workshops for succeeding conferences. If funded, a second-year conference will be held at the University of California, Davis the location of the AACDR. It will continue to look at research on best practices and will provide opportunities for providers, researchers, students and community members from the West Coast to participate. The third -year will be held in Honolulu to focus on the unique needs of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations, who are among the most underserved. It will allow NHPIs to participate in a meaningful way that goes beyond the usual one or two individuals who might be presenting at a conference on the U.S. mainland. A summary report from each conference will be developed and disseminated through the partner networks and will be shared with AHRQ and other federal partners. Disseminating information to providers and end users of the research findings is an important part of the process. Each group plays an important role in providing input into the national dialogue to insure that research is culturally and linguistically appropriate and that findings will be used to develop policies and services to improve health care outcomes for underserved AANHPIs.