Newsletter - Fall 2018

Greetings! I am deeply honored to be elected as your President and to have the opportunity to work alongside our continuing and newly-elected Board members of the South Asian Public Health Association (SAPHA). I would like to thank our immediate past President, Nazeera Dawood and Board members: Vaibhav Jain, Shipra Singh, Yousra Yusuf, Phani Veeranki, Shibani Ray-Mazumder, Syed Shahrukh Hashmi, Simran Kaur and Sana Hashim for their dedication and leadership. I want to acknowledge and thank our committed interns for the wonderful support they provide. Last but not least, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to our new board members: Saman Aziz, Samira Khan, Trushna Rao and Priya Thaker.

Over the years, SAPHA has made significant contributions to education and awareness, advocacy, partnership building, as well as research and scholarship to advance the health of South Asians in USA. Yet, there is much that remains to be done! On behalf of the Board, I strongly encourage you to continue to participate and share your ideas with us, and to invite your colleagues to join us. As a SAPHA member, you will have voting rights and eligibility to run for the SAPHA Board of Directors; be eligible to be part of a SAPHA committee and have access to exclusive member-only portions of the website.

SAPHA's long term success depends on each one of you; your active engagement, energy and contributions make us who we are. Let us continue to build on the important work we have done in the past and break new ground. By collaborating and working together, we can strengthen our collective efforts and continue advancing the critically important current and emerging foci in enhancing the health and well-being of South Asian individuals, as well as the communities in which they live and work.

Thank you for placing your trust in my leadership. I draw inspiration  from Margaret Mead's wise words: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

I wish you and your families the very best in health, happiness, peace, meaning and success.

Memoona Hasnain, MD, MHPE, PhD
President, SAPHA
Professor and Interim Head,
Department of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago

Samira received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from CUNY - The City College of New York in 2013, and a Master of Public Health from Hofstra University in 2016. In her final semester at Hofstra, she received her Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) certification. She is currently working as a Research Program Coordinator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Samira works primarily in research that examines the relationship between sleep disordered breathing, specifically obstructive sleep apnea, and cardiovascular outcomes. She previously worked as a research assistant at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, working on research that primarily focused on examining the effects of aerobic exercise on cognition in individuals with schizophrenia. Her public health research interests include examining and reducing health disparities in immigrant populations, focusing primarily on South Asian and Muslim communities. Samira's other current activities include working as a weekend school teacher at the Islamic Center of Long Island, training medical scribes at the Ophthalmic Consultants of Long Island, and serving as Secretary for the Hofstra Public Health Alumni Association. Samira's future goals include pursuing medical school and expanding on the research she conducted for her Master's Thesis, which examined the relationship between provider communication and patient understanding, and how it influences health behaviors in a Muslim population. This thesis was also selected for roundtable discussion at the APHA Conference in November 2017. She looks forward to serving on the Board of Directors for SAPHA. 

Dr. Memoona Hasnain, Professor and Interim Head in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the lead editor of the book, with co-editors Punam Parikh of UCLA School of Medicine and Dr. Nitasha Chaudhary Nagaraj of The George Washington University. Dr. Hasnain says that while South Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority populations in the U.S., there is a disturbing lack of research dedicated to health care issues specific to this group. "For many years, South Asian Americans were considered a 'model minority'; this erroneous perception that people from South Asian countries always achieve social and economic success has created a gap in our understanding of the significant health disparities experienced by this group." Hasnain serves as the president of SAPHA and previously served as the Chair of SAPHA's Research Committee. She credits the ongoing work of this group to expand the body of research available about South Asian American health care issues as the inspiration for the new book.

The Health of South Asians in the United States: An Evidence-based Guide for Policy and Program Development defines South  Asian Americans as people living in the U.S. with ancestral roots in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. "South Asian Americans bring with them unique languages, cultures, religions and perspectives that directly impact their health related practices," Hasnain said. "Unless we take the time to understand patients as whole people, it will always be a challenge to provide patient-centered and culturally-competent care, specifically in this increasingly understudied and vulnerable population." Of the major health disparities discussed in the book, Hasnain and her colleagues call attention to the significantly high rates of chronic conditions and co-morbidities, intimate partner violence and tobacco use in the South Asian American community. The book outlines these and other health disparities and discusses research-based recommendations to help improve and support the health and well-being of South Asian Americans.

"This book builds on our continuum of education, awareness, scholarship, advocacy and action to address the health needs of minority and vulnerable populations at the patient, provider and systems levels," Hasnain said. "We hope the information in this book will be widely used and applied for best practices, teaching and would spark for future research. We also hope this work will advance our understanding about interdisciplinary approaches to enhancing health and well-being of South Asian Americans and continue our efforts to reduce health disparities for minority populations."

The book was recently reviewed in Family Medicine, the official journal of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, which publishes research and content relevant to the discipline of family medicine, particularly focusing on primary care medical education, health workforce policy, and health services research. Read the review here. The book is available both on
Amazon.com and
Routledge.com.