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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Stella Gran-O'Donnell, MPH, MSW, School of Social Work, University of Washington, 4101 - 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105, 206.335.5079, sgran@u.washington.edu

Violence witnessed directly or indirectly significantly affects the health, mental health, and well-being of inner city racial and ethnic minorities, including refugees and immigrants. Furthermore, estimates reveal one in three young women have or will be involved in an abusive relationship. Community violence plagues society with soaring costs and bears long-term emotional scars. Furthermore, physical aggression in dating relationships varies among minorities with glaring disparities found among some racial and ethnic groups. Yet, little is known about dating violence among young Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) females. For refugees and immigrants, cultural factors, stigma and shame may compound the problem, further compromise physical, mental health, coping skills, and prevent help seeking behaviors. In response, the Eastside AAPI Young Women's Project was launched in 2003 by a community-based organization (CBO) - whose mission is to provide mental health/social services to this marginalized population. Collaborating with key stakeholders, including school, business and government representatives, drew strong support including funding. The aim of the project is to: raise awareness of community violence, promote youth leadership skills, peer advocacy, and positive attitudes and healthy relationship behaviors. A comprehensive, twenty six week violence prevention curriculum was designed to enhance positive ethnic identity development among young AAPI women, address risks including depression and suicide, highlight influences of negative media messages, and promote positive communication and other healthy relationship attributes. Preliminary evaluation results were positive. Strategies used to design and develop the curriculum, implement the community program and related evaluation, plus lessons learned will be shared.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant in this session will be able to

• Describe required steps to engage and mobilize a diverse group of community stakeholders, to help build community capacity for, and to actively advocate for the prevention/reduction of community violence.
• Recognize the significance of and criteria needed to tailor program planning, design and development of curriculum, and evaluation to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of young AAPI women and other refugees and immigrants; and
• Identify steps needed to engage refugee and immigrant youth in peer advocacy activities related to community violence prevention.

Keywords: Asian and Pacific Islander, Community Programs

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No