Council of Asian Pacific Americans (CAPA)

HAAP is for Healthy Asian Americans

By Janilla Lee, Ph.D.

From the 2000 census report, 21.9% of Asian Americans had annual income $100K or more, nearly double that of the U.S. population (13.8%). Under the shadow of this big header labeling Asian Americans as an affluent group, it is easily overlooked that there are still 22.3 % of Asian Americans (29% for total U.S. population) below the poverty line of annual income $25K or less. They need help, even more so than other low-income Americans because of language and cultural barriers.

For this reason, the Healthy Asian American Program (HAAP) at the University of Michigan School of Nursing is to provide health service to the underserved people. This program can help low-income women to receive free breast and cervical cancer screening, i.e. mammogram and pap smear tests, paid for by the State of Michigan. Women of 40 or older are recommended to take these tests annually.

In addition to service, HAAP also provides health data for Asian Americans, as part of the on-going research to understand health needs for every ethnic group. What is the health data for Asian Americans in comparison to that of Caucasians, Latino or African Americans? What is the health difference between Asians and Asian Americans? What are the leading cancers in each Asian American group? What is the survival rate for each cancer? All these questions require special studies from different subgroups and HAAP can facilitate such studies for each Asian American group locally or nationally.

The 3rd mission for HAAP is to educate the community to be aware of all health issues facing Asian Americans. Lay Health Advisor is a program that HAAP has been carrying on for the past 5+ years for this mission. We first educate community health leaders, then have them cascade the information to their families and circle of friends. By going thru the grape vine to spread information, the network set-up can also be used for specific or emergency health issues. Examples are a disease breakout, searching for a specific bone marrow type etc., the network can help communication.

HAAP was founded by Dr. Mei-yu Yu in 1996 with the help of a few other Asian Americans at U. M. School of Nursing. Since then,
•  More than 1730 patients benefited from the free screening programs.
•  7 different research papers were published on Asian American Health issues.
•  LHA network has been established among Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.

Unfortunately Dr. Yu passed away in August 2005. Currently Dr. Oakley, a retired professor from U.M. School of Nursing, is the acting director until the University can hire a permanent staff to direct this program. The University recognized this is an important program for them as well as for the community, and will continue and support its progress.

About half of HAAP staff. (Standing, left to right) Amy Seetoo, Deborah Oakley (interim director), Janilla Lee, Lily Deng and Judy Chen, front row are all university students who are hired by HAAP.

Contact Information

Website: http://www.nursing.umich.edu/haap

Project Office
Room 3246
University of Michigan
School of Nursing Building
400 North Ingalls
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-0482

Phone: (734) 936-8913 or toll free 877-625-4683
FAX: (734) 936-8910
Multilingual Voice Mail: Phone: (734) 936-8903 or toll free 800-936-8903
Press 1-Chinese, 2-Korean, 3-Japanese, 4-Asian Indian,
5-Vietnamese, 6-Hmong, 7-Filipino

Disclaimer

The views expressed in the editorials are solely of the individual author and are not necessarily those of the Council of Asian Pacific Americans or its members.

CAPA reserves the rights to delete any reader's response or comment to the article, if considers inappropriate.

News from the Governor's Advisory Council on Asian Pacific American Affairs

The Governor's Advisory Council will meet next on 12/5/05, Monday, 10 am to 1 pm, at the Governor's Office in the Capitol Building, Lansing.  The meeting is open to the public but an RSVP must be made to VyAnn Grant, GrantV1@michigan.gov. 

The Council's new website address is http://www.michigan.gov/mdcr/0,1607,7-138--127553--,00.html.

To help with the Katrina Relief effort, the Council brought the Michigan Asian Pacific American communities together by pooling the contributions.  The total amount was over $23,000.00 which was presented to Director Linda Parker of the MI Department of Civil Rights on behalf of the Governor.  The participating community organizations included:

•  Association of Chinese Americans
•  Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce (APACC)
•  Chinmaya Seva Samiti
•  Council of Asian Pacific Americans(CAPA)
•  Filipino American Political Association of MI(FAPAM)
•  India Club of Greater Flint
•  Korean American Community of Metro Detroit(KACMD)
•  Korean American Women’s Association(KAWA)
•  National Federation of Filipino American Associations MI Chapter(NaFFAA)

We would like to thank these organizations and all others for their generous outpouring of support to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Click to read the letter to the Governor about the contribution of the Asian Pacific American community.

The Governor also appointed additional Council members as follows:
Mr. Guozhen Lu of  Canton; Ms. Remiblanca B. Kuklewski of  Grand Rapids; Ms. Khanh-Van T. Nguyen of  East Lansing; and Dr. Leslie E. Wong of  Marquette

Additionally, Mr. Ganesh V. Reddy of Okemos, Michigan  is designated as Vice-Chairperson of the Advisory Council for Asian and Pacific American Affairs.

Click to read the press release from the Governor's Office about the appointments.