Recorded presentation

Joshua S. Yang, MPH, Community Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CHS 36-071, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, (310) 874-7992, joshy@ucla.edu

A growing literature on immigrant barriers to health care has shown that immigrants tend to have lower rates of health insurance than their native born counterparts and unique, culturally mediated barriers to health care utilization. In response, the health care community has proposed a number of programs to decrease these barriers. However, piecemeal programs neglect the fact that health care systems are not structured to meet the access and utilization needs of immigrant communities. The current paper will show how Chinese Hospital in San Francisco has been structured to meet the needs of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. It will take a historical approach, identifying how the Chinese community in San Francisco Chinatown was able to identify and mobilize the resources to create and form a point of health care delivery to meet the health care needs neglected by the mainstream health care system. The emergence of Chinese Community Health Plan from Chinese Hospital as a community based effort to increase access to care will also be examined. A model to identity and mobilize the resources to create health care institutions in immigrant communities derived from the experiences of Chinese Hospital and Chinese Community Health Plan will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, participants in this session will (
• asses the impact of power struggles among political actors to structure health care in their communities of interest and (
• develop strategies to identify and mobilized strategies for local action to meet community health care needs

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation