Policy Pick: Filipino Health Coalition

Maternal alcohol, tobacco and drug use in Los Angeles County's Filipino community will be the focus of a newly-formed coalition that will address public health issues affecting the Filipino American population, as well as other immigrant and disadvantaged residents.

The three members of the Filipino Health Coalition, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans, the Asian Pacific Health Care Venture and the Pilipino Workers' Center - all based in Historic Filipinotown - also hope to create a strong voice for the county's 300,000 Filipino Americans.

"Our initial goal is to build a countywide coalition and reduce the impact of substance abuse on our children," said Joel Jacinto, executive director of SIPA. "Long term, we want to partner with policy makers, health care practitioners, social service providers, educators and other organizations to improve health care and child development services for not just for Filipinos, but all immigrant and underserved communities."

The coalition has three main goals:

• Produce and analyze data related to prenatal and maternal substance use and abuse, as well as access to - and the cultural competency of - health care providers and community outreach and education programs. 
• Develop strategic policy recommendations for improving the health and safety of Filipino American children from before birth through age 5 for policy makers, health care providers and other advocates and institutions.
• Develop research methodology and advocacy models that can be used to conduct similar projects in other immigrant, low-income or underserved communities.

"Very little data exists on maternal substance abuse in our community, partly because collecting such data is so difficult in immigrant communities," said Aquilina Soriano, executive director of the PWC. "We hope our project will not only produce valuable data, but establish research methods that can be applied to other ethnic populations."

With the support of a First 5 LA Community Opportunities Fund Grant, the FHC recently launched its study, which will include two years of data collection via surveys, focus groups and interviews. It will ultimately help providers and policy makers understand the particular needs of immigrant communities and inform the development of more effective approaches and practices.

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