Asian Media Access has been a part of the state-wide Project HEALINGS (Health Education and Adult Learning Incorporated with Navigating Government Systems) since 2021.
 
Project HEALINGS was created as a HUB to improve the health and wellness of the Minnesotans, who may be disenfranchised by identity and circumstances, who are facing disparities in both healthcare access and health outcomes and are impacted disproportionately by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
We feel one of the barriers particularly for our Limited English Proficiency (LEP) immigrants and refugees is to explain the basic scientific information in a simple but comprehensive way along with the cultural implications of our communities, so this health information can be discussed widely, like at LEP members’ dinner tables, etc…  But since we are in constant emergency mode with the pandemic, many of the messages have become, “Go Get Tested,” “Go Get Vaccinated,“  very direct information without much context provided to our communities.
 
With new case numbers trending down, we should start to allocate more resources to support health literacy, as the basic information to explain what are vaccines, how vaccines are created and approved by FDA, or how the COVID-19 virus mutated, along with cultural and social determinants which may impact on high rate COVID-19 infections among BIPOC communities.
 
Therefore, AMA has teamed up with the Chinese American Chamber of Commerce – MN, and with Spitfire, which specializes in health education materials and message development, to create a series of 6 educational articles to mitigate the vaccination myths. We look to build a collective process to engage LEP members in broadening the health literacy context with a better framework in order to mitigate another crisis like this pandemic in the future.
 
Following are links to articles.  We welcome your feedback to better engage with everyone and intentionally build a solution for a complex layer of challenges around health and LEP communities’  vaccination hesitancy, in order to peel away the layers of mistrust and much more.