The proposed Filipino American Health Summit is the first interdisciplinary collaborative effort convening key representatives from the healthcare, research, community and policy advocacy sectors to share research findings and best practices specifically addressing cardiovascular health disparities that disproportionately affect Filipino American (FA) communities. This summit promises to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the field of public health as it aims to increase health providers'knowledge of cardiovascular health disparities to better serve and treat FA patients and to foster the development of strategies that are community-based, collaborative across different sectors, and to create systems changes to help improve FAs'cardiovascular health status. The objectives of the summit are: 1) to convene key representatives from various sectors including healthcare, research and community and policy advocacy in order to facilitate collaborations to address cardiovascular health disparities affecting FAs;2) to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current clinical, genetic, epidemiological and behavioral research on cardiovascular health disparities prevalent in FA communities;3) to identify dietary/nutritional, behavioral and socio-cultural determinants that influence cardiovascular health among FAs;and 4) to identify current best practices and to design viable strategies focused on preventing early morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular events among Filipinos. The 2 day summit will consist of morning plenary sessions on both days which will be dedicated to panels of experts who will present recent findings on Filipino cardiovascular health disparities as well as innovative interventions and strategies to address them. Speakers include researchers, clinicians, community advocates, and governmental representatives. Poster presentations will also be solicited from community-based organizations, community leaders, students, faculty, and policy advocates to present any innovative findings, approaches, and methodologies relevant to Filipinos and cardiovascular health. The afternoon sessions are dedicated to keynote speakers and roundtables to develop recommendations of strategies to address Filipino cardiovascular health (through research, interventions, or policy changes), and engage with federal agency representatives and policy makers. Networking with federal agencies and policy makers enables participants to initiate partnerships, learn about resources these agencies provide that could be useful in serving the FA community, and provide recommendations such as how to culturally tailor materials to the Filipino community.
The proposed Filipino American Health Summit is relevant to the field of public health since it will be the first time to gather experts from various sectors to specifically share research findings and identify solutions to improve the cardiovascular health status of the Filipino American community. Clinicians will be engaged to provide interpretations of those findings as it applies to the patients they serve, and collaborations will be fostered across the disciplines so that community representatives can share which interventions are needed or effectively reach the Filipino community. Furthermore policy makers will have an increased understanding of how cardiovascular disparities impact their Filipino constituents and explore what policy changes are needed to ameliorate these disparities.
