by Connie C. Triggiano
Roughly 4.1 million Filipinos currently call the US their home. As early as the 1920s Filipinos have been part of the American landscape, working the vast California agricultural land, championing the rights of farm laborers and extracting concessions for higher wages and better work environment.
In the 1960s Filipino nurses in turn started arriving in the US becoming an integral part of the US healthcare system. They came to fill scarcity in the nursing practice and earned recognition for English language fluency, exceptional skills, strong work ethic and dedication to their craft.
While the early farm workers and present-day Filipino nurses have demonstrated their contributions to improve the general quality of life in the US, the particular health needs of this demographic group has not been properly addressed. Filipino Americans have been underrepresented in medical and healthcare studies, resulting into disparities in timely interventions, drugs, treatments and various strategies of care modalities.
For lack of specific Filipino-centric healthcare and medical response to what particularly ails the Filipino, the US health system administers protocols and medical interventions designed for the greater population and major racial groups. Tailoring of treatments for the majority of the people instead of providing appropriate protocols to each of the diverse patient bases poses potential harm and may even lead to dangerous results if left unchecked. This stems from the differences in healthcare requirements prompted by the unique conditions of the different ethnic groups in the United States.
Filipino Americans’ absence in research studies even if many of them are geared towards the needs of ethnic minorities, is a critical need that is now being addressed.
Now comes MOSAAIC.
Filipino Americans and by affinity, other Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are now the subject of a pioneering and comprehensive health study, a research project that “listens to our needs and finds ways to make things better for everyone.”
Called Multi-ethnic Observational Study in Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Communities (MOSAAIC), males/females ages 18-64, the program seeks to understand health disparities among these groups since they have been underrepresented in health-related studies. Absence from these studies results into biased data that fails to determine the issues affecting inability to access or utilize health care or receive quality and culturally competent care. This crucial gap results into differences in actual health outcomes.
MOSAAIC is a groundbreaking health initiative. For far too long, the health guidance Filipino American and Asian families receive has not always been developed or focused with these particular communities in mind.
Endemic toAsian immigrants’ health disparaties are multifaceted influence factors including native countries’ home culture and a complex interplay of economic status, language barriers, educational attainment or social issues from multi-generational family mix.
Among other concerns, MOSAAIC has a triune focus on three critical health issues identified to be prevalent in its target subjects: cardiac, pulmonary, and mental health. They were identified by MOSAAIC proponents as posing the most risk: for instance, patients with severe mental health, according to the European Heart Journal (March 21, 2014), “die on average 15-20 years earlier due to a cardiovascular illness.”
The Journal of American Health Association (April 21, 2024) reported from its study that Filipino patients had the “highest overall CVD prevalence,” increasing from 34% to 45.1% over an 11-year period. Additionally, coronary artery dieseas increased faster among other Asian racial sectors.
The US’ Office of Mental Health (DHHS) in October 2024 issued a troubling study claiming that in 2022, suicide was the leading cause of death among young Asians 15-24 and in 2023, Asian American adults were “50% less likely to have received mental health treatment than non-Hispanic white adults.” The same study pegged the causes of mental health troubles as feelings of worthlessness, sadness, hopelessness or that “everything is an effort.” These problems ensue from adversarial personal relationships, loss of jobs or deaths of loved ones, among others.
In August 2024, a Science Direct study on thoracic issues cited lung cancer as a major health burden – and that Asian Americans are “the only” racial group experiencing cancer as leading cause of death for both genders. The same study disclosed its stark contrast to other US racial sectors whose death statistics point to heart disease as primary cause of death.
It was for the above troubling reports and statistical data that MOSAAIC was launched and is now administered for Filipino Americans by the HOPE Team of Rizal Center in Chicago.
Participants until age 64 are urged to enroll (with stipend, if qualified) to help build health knowledge specific to the health requirements of the community. Participants’ information will be linked to other databases to gather more data on health outcomes and risk factors in our communities. For more information, contact Rizal Center, 1332 W Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL 60613. Phone 773-360-8597. Email: info@rizalcenter.org.
Connie Triggiano is currently Board Secretary of Circa-Pintig, a Chicago community theater organization. She works as Academic and English tutor assisting foreign students to pass IELTS, TOEFL, Celpic, ESL and other English exams to gain admission to universities in English speaking countries. She also trains greencard holders to pass US citizenship exams and interview. She worked for many years as Vice-President of Chicago-based Leo Burnett Advertising in its Manila office where she managed the advertising accounts of the country’s biggest brands: Procter & Gamble, Pepsi Cola International, BPI, Vicks, Wyeth and Cathay Pacific. She edited a travel newspaper in Singapore and taught college freshmen in a local university. Connie graduated with a BA degree, major in English, from the University of San Francisco in California while working as an information officer for a United Way agency. She took up MS in Advertising at the Asian Institute for the Development of Advertising, UST Graduate School.
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