AAHI says farewell yet again to another group of interns. Patricia Nguyen and Rebeka Sultana joined the AAHI team from the University of Maryland College Park School of Public Health. As senior Community Health majors, Patricia and Rebeka participated in a semester-long internship as a part of their undergraduate experience.
As spring was a very busy season for AAHI, especially with these newer initiatives, the interns provided critical support for AAHI tasks. They actively participated in various AAHI activities from outreach events, to attending trainings and reaching out to small businesses for the Independent Outreach Project.
In addition to working side-by-side with AAHI staff, the interns also completed independent projects. Patricia worked on a nail salon project highlighting the health concerns of nail salon workers. This is especially important among the Asian American community as many nail salons are staffed with Asian American employees. Rebeka worked on a project highlighting mental health among Asian American youth. Through her research she found that mental health is an important health concern for Asian American youth and it should be addressed.
We thank Patricia and Rebeka for their hard work and wonderful contributions to AAHI's projects! We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
On Thursday, May 19, AAHI hosted a technical assistance workshop, MCDHHS101. This workshop is the first in a series of practical and professional technical assistance training workshops designed to empower and enhance the ability of community leaders to develop culturally and linguistically competent health programming.
MCDHHS101 was a training workshop provided by two individuals from Montgomery County's Department of Health and Human Services: Betty Lam, Chief of Office of Community Affairs and Luis Martinez, Diversity Outreach Coordinator. The workshop provided a comprehensive overview of the various services and resources available through the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services and how that information could be useful and accessible for communities.
We thank all of our community partners who took time out of their schedules to attend this workshop. We hope the information was useful and will benefit your programs as we all work towards building a healthier community.
AAHI Community, May is Mental Health Awareness month, what do you know about mental health and Asian Americans? Below are some facts from the National Alliance on mental health and Asian Americans: • "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have the lowest rates of utilization of mental health services among ethnic populations" • "Among elderly women of all ethnic or racial groups, Asians have the highest suicide rate" • "According to mental health care providers: Asian American women ages 15-24 have a higher rate of suicide than Caucasians,African Americans and Latinos in that age group" • "Many Southeast Asian refugees are at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with trauma experienced before and after immigration to the United States."
Mental health problems can affect anyone, no matter race, ethnicity, gender or age. In this months outreach efforts, AAHI has employed various tactics to help educate community members on mental health.
Thursday, May 12- AAHI attended the Wellness and Recovery Resource Fair at the Executive Office Building in Rockville. AAHI brought their wheel of health education focusing on mental health. The wheel is an interactive method of engaging the community in health education.
Saturday, May 14- AAHI attended the Annual Women's Event. This event was a wonderful and interactive event for women, filled with education, information, screenings and various interactive demonstrations. AAHI set up a table with their wheel of health education focusing on mental health.
Thank you to our partners for allowing us participate at both of these outreach events.
For Mental Health Awareness month, AAHI has published educational articles on mental health in the Washington Chinese News and the Korea Daily. Thank you to both of our media partners for working with us to publish these articles.
The National Council of Asian Pacific Islander Physicians invites you to attend a free webinar on preventive services on Saturday, June 18 at 2:00pm ET. For more information, please view the flier by clicking here.
AAHI Community, There are several upcoming events in the next few days. This Thursday, May 12, from 10am-2pm there is the Stroke Awareness Day at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. Also on that day from 4:30pm-8pm, there is the Wellness and Recovery Fair at the Executive Office Building in Rockville. For more information, please view our calendar:
This Saturday, May 14, Holy Cross Hospital is hosting their Annual Women's Health Event from 10am-1:30pm. The event will include health lectures, screenings, demonstrations and much more! The event will be held at Holy Cross Hospital Professional and Community Education Center 1500 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring, MD. Please view the flier for more information:
AAHI Community, The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's (WMATA)website is now available in five languages: Spanish, French, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. We hope the availability of Metro's website in these languages will help reduce transportation barriers for limited-English proficient populations.
Share this wonderful resource with family and friends, you can visit the website by clicking here. To change languages navigate to the top of the page where this is an image of the globe.
AAHI Community, May marks an especially exciting month for AAHI as it is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. At AAHI, we are proud to celebrate the generations of Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) who have made an impact in our country, our state and our county.
On a local level, Montgomery County is home to nearly half of Maryland's Asian American population. According to the 2010 US Census, approximately 42.5% of Maryland's Asian American population resides in Montgomery County which is equivalent to about 13.9% of the County's population. We would like to take this time to thank and salute our fellow partners for working together to build a stronger Asian Pacific American community.
There are several events in the DC-Metropolitan area to celebrate Asian Pacific American heritage. If you are interested in learning more about APA Heritage Month and activities related to this month, please click here.
AAHI bid farewell to April and welcomed May with a full calendar of events! In a span of 6 days, we attended 5 events and coordinated 1 training.
Starting on Thursday, April 28th, we hosted the monthly Health Promoter meeting. For this meeting, we invited Mr. Aaron Williams, Director of Research, from the Danya Institute (affiliated with SAMHSA) to conduct an 'Addiction 101' training. The training was very informative touching upon substance abuse in the Asian American community, methods of prevention and treatment options. Thank you to Mr. Aaron for taking the time to train AAHI Health Promoters, interns and staff. We look forward to working with you in the future. Pictures from the training:
The training was followed by several events on Saturday, April 30th. This was a very busy yet equally exciting day for AAHI. Our AAHI team divided to participate in 3 events! Chinese American Senior Service Association (CASSA) Health Fair: we attended this wonderful health fair and provided health education and bone density screenings. We provided health information and education on various topics including cancer, osteoporosis, hepatitis B, community resources, and diabetes. We would like to thank CASS for inviting us to participate in the event. Pictures of the event:
Also on this Saturday, we participated in the health fair at Global Mission Church (GMC). Similar to CASSA, at this health fair, we provided health information and education on a variety of concerns and conducted bone density screenings. Prior to this event, we trained volunteers from GMC at AAHI's office on how to conduct the bone density screening, interpret results and provide education. We want to thank the GMC volunteers for attending the training and for inviting us to participate in their event. Pictures of the event:
Lastly, on Saturday, we also attended an event at Holy Cross Hospital titled, To Your Health! This was a wonderful health screening and education day provided to the community. Holy Cross Hospital was providing preventative screenings including cholesterol, glucose, clinical breast exam, pap test, digital rectal exam and prostate antigen test. Thank you to Holy Cross Hospital for inviting us to attend and provide our health information. Pictures of the event:
The following day, Sunday May 1st, we had the opportunity to attend and exhibit at the Montgomery County Health & Resources Fair held at the Executive Office Building. This was a great opportunity for us to educate the community about our programs. We want to thank the organizers for allowing us to participate in this event. Pictures from event:
And finally, today, Monday May 2nd, we participated in the Active Aging Expo held at Bohrer Park in Gaithersburg. As always, this event has a lot of great organizations and activities. We attended the event to provide health information and health education various health concerns. We also utilized our Wheel of Health Education as an interactive method for engaging the community. The questions covered a variety of topics including mental health, hepatitis B, breast cancer and tobacco. We really enjoyed being with the aging community and thank you to the organizers for providing us the space to exhibit! Pictures from the event:
All these events would not have been possible with our dedicated Health Promoters- thank you all for your continual support in building a healthier community. And a great big thank you to our interns for their participation this weekend too!
AAHI says farewell yet again to another group of interns. Patricia Nguyen and Rebeka Sultana joined the AAHI team from the University of Maryland College Park School of Public Health. As senior Community Health majors, Patricia and Rebeka participated in a semester-long internship as a part of their undergraduate experience. 
