Title: Positive Minds – Strong Bodies: Building Community Capacity for Disability Prevention for Minority Elders

Summary:

Chinese elders represent a rapidly increasing segment of an aging U.S. population, with less access to mental health care, suffering significant disparities in access and quality care, and augmented risk for disability. Fresh approaches are needed that move services into the community to meet potential elder needs in a culturally and linguistically competent environment that is inherently embedded in the client’s neighborhood. To address these disparities and prevent disability among Chinese elders, the Positive Minds- Strong Bodies study examines how to successfully build collaborative research for the provision of evidence-based mental health and disability prevention treatments in community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve Chinese elderly clients. This presentation will provide an overview of the mental health burden in Chinese, gaps in mental health services, preliminary data on the study population, a description of study aims, details of the multi-level intervention, and process for referring Chinese patients.

Speaker Bio:

Chau Trinh-Shevrin, DrPH, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. Within the Department of Population Health, Dr. Trinh-Shevrin serves as Director of Large Research Initiatives and the Section for Health Equity. Dr. Trinh-Shevrin also co-directs the Community Engagement and Population Health Core for the NYU-Health + Hospitals Clinical and Translational Science Institute, developing community-engaged research and research training initiatives.

Currently, Dr. Trinh-Shevrin is Principal Investigator of a NIH National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities P60 Center of Excellence - the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) – the only national center of its kind focused on understanding and addressing health disparities in Asian American populations. Dr. Trinh-Shevrin is also PI of a CDC-funded Health Promotion and Prevention Research Center focused on building community capacity and leadership for disease prevention using a community health worker model approach. CSAAH has grown extensively to house a REACH Center of Excellence to Eliminate Hepatitis B Disparities, and, in collaboration with the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the national STRIVE (Strategies to Reach and Implement the Vision of Health Equity) Project. In 2009, CSAAH was the first academic recipient to receive the prestigious Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health’s Leadership Award for its contributions in addressing health disparities.

Dr. Trinh-Shevrin is a social epidemiologist with a doctorate in public health from Columbia University and a master in health policy and management at the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Trinh-Shevrin currently serves on the board of director for the Chinatown YMCA of New York City and on the New York State’s Medicaid Redesign Team Health Disparities Workgroup. Dr. Trinh-Shevrin previously served four years on the board of directors for the Public Health Association of New York City. Dr. Trinh-Shevrin is co-editor of two textbooks Asian American Communities and Health (Jossey Bass Publishers, 2009) and Empowerment and Recovery: Confronting Addiction during Pregnancy with Peer Counseling (Praeger Press, 1998).

Register here: https://cams-seminar-positive-minds-strong-bodies.eventbrite.com