Hep B Blog

Tag Archives: AAPCHO

Hepatitis B Foundation Mini-Grantees 2016

At the Hepatitis B Foundation, we have many research and programs throughout the year. With the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), we co-founded and co-chair Hep B United, a national coalition dedicated to reducing the health disparities associated with hepatitis B by increasing awareness, screening, vaccination, and linkage to care for high-risk communities across the United States. The coalition works to reduce the impact of hepatitis B through prevention and education efforts, addressing perinatal transmission, improving screening and linkage to care, contributing to national surveillance data, and advocating on a national level.

Last year, the Hepatitis B Foundation offered mini-grants for one year to Hep B United coalition partners working on hepatitis B education, screening and linkage to care activities. These grants ranged between $5,000 to $10,000 each. The mini-grants were offered to enhance the capacity of Hep B United coalition partners to conduct HBV education, testing and linkage to care in their local Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AA & NHPI) communities to advance the hepatitis B priority areas of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Viral Hepatitis Action Plan (VHAP).

Courtesy of CPACS

The 2016-17 project year offered grants to 9 coalition partners, which included Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc (CPACS), Hepatitis B Initiative-Minnesota (HBI-MN), Midwest Asian Health Association (MAHA), Hepatitis B Initiative-DC (HBI-DC), Asian Services in Action (ASIA), Asian American Community Services (AACS), Asian Pacific Health Foundation (APHF), and HOPE Clinic. Together, Hep B United coalition partners screened 4,649 people, educated and reached out to 11,884 people, and distributed 13,112 handouts. Some coalition partners were featured in  newspapers, on TV with 496,189 views, and in a social media video. Mini-grantees also participated in activities such as developing key partnerships in local communities, providing linkage to care, and conducting provider training. One coalition partner also screened the “Be About It” documentary.

For 2017-2018 mini-grants, six Hep B United coalition partners (listed below) were recently awarded mini-grants. We are excited to kick off these projects and look forward to their future endeavors and results.

·     Asian American Community Services (Columbus, OH) -AACS’ Live Healthy – Hep Free project will use the H+EAL model to increase HBV education and awareness and encourage testing by targeting high school students and their parents.

·       Asian Pacific Community in Action (Phoenix, AZ) – APCA will be organizing community town hall events in collaboration with the #justB campaign across Maricopa County to collect and share stories that promote increased awareness and proactive approaches to treatment for hepatitis B.

·       Asian Pacific Health Foundation (San Diego, CA) – APHF will be working to increase community knowledge and awareness of hepatitis B, determine gaps in knowledge, develop in-language education materials, and provide hepatitis B screening within high-risk communities throughout San Diego.

·       Asian Services in Action (Cleveland, OH) – ASIA will be using community health outreach workers to increase HBV education and screening, including outreach to AAPI businesses in Akron and Cleveland, OH.

·       Center for Pan Asian Community Services (Atlanta, GA) – CPACS’ project focuses on expanding their Atlanta-based hepatitis B coalition, increasing the number of Georgia AAPI community members who know their HBV status through community and provider education, and improving testing and linkage to care services throughout the city.

·       Philadelphia Department of Public Health (Philadelphia, PA) -The Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention Program auxiliary project will create new education modules for prenatal and pediatric care and conduct on-site provider education sessions to improve knowledge and care for infected mothers.

The 2017-18 project period expanded its priorities to address perinatal transmission and education through storytelling efforts with the #JustB Storytelling Campaign in addition to screenings and linkage to care.   The overall success of the Hep B United mini-grants has been proven through the significant number of high-risk populations educated, screened and linked into appropriate care for hepatitis B.   We look forward to updating you further in the coming months as we continue to highlight the national work of the Hepatitis B Foundation and Hep B United partners around the U.S.

A Capitol Celebration: US Leaders in Hepatitis B Celebrate World Hepatitis Day

Hep B United (HBU), a coalition established by the Hepatitis B Foundation (HBF) and the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), held its fifth annual Hep B United Summit from July 26th to 28th in Washington D.C. The summit was held to promote screening and prevention strategies and advocate for a cure to further HBU’s mission to eliminate hepatitis B in the United States.

The summit is the largest gathering of hepatitis B leaders from around the country including public health agencies, national non-profit organizations, community coalitions, and individuals and family members affected by hep B. Catherine Freeland, MPH, Public Health Manager of HBF, said, “The summit is like a family reunion.” It’s an opportunity for HBU members to convene, share best strategies, and celebrate their wins over the past five years. The partnerships within HBU ensures that best practices and resources are shared as well. “Once we have a cure, we are committed to making sure chronically infected Americans get it,” Chari Cohen, DrPH, MPH, co-chair of HBU mentioned during the summit. Over the past year, HBU screened 22,556, educated 52,194, and reached over 6 million people with in-language hepatitis B messaging! That’s a win for sure!

As a part of the summit, HBU partners visited Capitol Hill to discuss with federal legislators the need to support hepatitis B and liver cancer research, education, screening, and treatment programs. A Congressional reception was also held to highlight the “#justB: Real People Sharing their Stories of Hepatitis B” storytelling campaign, which increases awareness of hepatitis B through personal stories. There were also meeting sessions focusing on capacity building, sustaining local hepatitis B coalitions, and best ways to utilize resources like the “Know Hepatitis B” campaign from the CDC and Hep B United and the #justB campaign. The Hep B United Summit is a way to celebrate World Hepatitis Day, which is on July 28th every year. Partners celebrated and raised awareness for World Hepatitis Day around Capitol Hill with a scavenger hunt!

At the Summit, HBU and its CDC partners presented five community leaders with the 2017 Hep B Champion Awards in recognition of their outstanding commitment to eliminating hepatitis B and liver cancer in their communities:

 Cathy Phan, the Health Initiatives Project Manager at HOPE Clinic in Houston, Texas, is recognized for her dedication to reducing health disparities, advocating for access to health care and health equity for underserved populations. Cathy brings unique perspectives, best practices and creative, innovative ideas from the local community clinics to the national level.

Vivian Huang, MD, MPH, the Director of Adult Immunization and Emergency Preparedness for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the medical director for the NYC Department of Health Immunization Clinic is recognized for her commitment to reducing the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases locally and globally including hepatitis B and liver cancer. Dr. Huang is a strong, tireless advocate for hepatitis B prevention, education, and treatment and health equity through health department engagement.

Hong Liu, PhD, the Executive Director of the Midwest Asian Health Association in Chicago, Illinois, is recognized for her innovative approaches to educating the public on hepatitis B and her willingness to share her best practices and experiences with others working in the field. This year, Dr. Liu’s leadership has led her organization to educating over 1,337 individuals in Chicago’s Chinatown district and screening close to 300 individuals for hepatitis B.

Dan-Tam Phan-Hoang, MSc., is program manager of HBI-Minnesota, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based non-profit that she helped start in 2015. Dan-Tam is recognized for her leadership in Minneapolis, building strong collaborations with community leaders, healthcare providers, funders, and government agencies to address hepatitis B throughout the state and successfully establishing a hepatitis B outreach and prevention program for high-risk communities in the Twin Cities.

The National Task Force on Hepatitis B for AAPI, is a national organization that brings together scientists, health professionals, non-profit organizations, and concerned citizens in a concerted effort to eliminate the transmission of hepatitis B and to decrease health disparities among those chronically infected. The Task Force is recognized for increasing physicians’ awareness about hepatitis B and launching a new health care provider program, bringing together public health and health care professionals in regional meetings around the country. The Health Education for Liver Providers (H.E.L.P.) Training Program is designed to provide health care providers and their medical team core medical knowledge of hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

Read the summit press release here.

More pictures of the summit can be found on HBU’s Facebook album, Storify, and e-newsletter.

To read about the Hep B United 2016 Summit from last year, click here.

In America, It Takes a Coalition to Combat Hepatitis B

Hep B United Summit members meet with California lawmakers in Washington DC.
Hep B United Summit members meet with California lawmakers in Washington DC.

By Christine Kukka

In late July, during World Hepatitis Day 2016, the fourth annual Hep B United Summit convened in Washington D.C. and dozens of advocates met with federal officials and brainstormed strategies to increase screening, immunization and linking people to care to eliminate hepatitis B across the country.

The Hepatitis B Foundation and the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organization (AAPCHO) established Hep B United in 2011 to address the silent epidemic of hepatitis B. The liver disease infects 2 million people in the U.S., and 67 percent don’t know they’re infected.

Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and African immigrant

Members of the Hep B United 2016 Summit in Washington DC.
Members of the Hep B United 2016 Summit in Washington DC.

communities are among those hardest hit. Crafting a culturally- and liguistically-adept approach on small or non-existent budgets to educate and screen these diverse populations remains a challenge for Hep B United’s  more than 30 community coalitions in 15 states and Washington D.C.

On the upside, the coalition’s organizations have educated 4 million Americans and screened about 40,000. However, large swaths of the country lack outreach efforts to prevent the spread of hepatitis B. For a map and list of Hep B United Summit member organizations, click here.

The coalition’s ongoing hepatitis B prevention efforts mirror HIV and hepatitis C campaigns that have sought to increase education, screening, and linkage to care. But in many respects, Hep B advocates face more challenges:

  • Because there is a safe and effective vaccine that prevents hepatitis B, many state and federal health officials assume the infection will go away on its own and government resources for screening and prevention have been minimal.
  • Many immigrant populations affected by hepatitis B have unique languages and cultures, which requires careful, individual approaches to each community.
  • Federal healthcare programs often under-funded or inhibit effective prevention work. For example, Medicare currently does not cover the cost of life-saving hepatitis B tests in seniors, many of whom are in high-risk groups because of their ethnicity or personal history. The federal government has proposed to cover screening, but only if it’s ordered in a primary care office.  Some of the most effective screening in high-risk communities often occurs at community-based settings or emergency rooms, far from a primary care office. Summit participants are orchestrating letter-writing to endorse the federal government’s proposed decision to cover hepatitis B screening under Medicare and to convince Medicare officials to broaden coverage of hepatitis B screening.

Summit also participants met with federal officials from the U.S.  Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) and the Department of Justice to push for more effective policies and increased funding to fight the world’s most common serious liver infection. One afternoon was spent visiting Congressional representatives to boost lawmakers’ awareness of the terrible toll hepatitis B takes on their constituencies.

“If community organizations can learn from each other and develop effective ways to educate people about hepatitis B and to get them screened and referred to medical care in the early stages of their infection, we can succeed in preventing new cases, save health care dollars and, most importantly, save lives,” said Jeffrey Caballero, AAPCHO executive director and Hep B United co-chair.

The following four hepatitis B advocates were honored at the summit for their work to eradicate hepatitis B:

Alex Shirreffs, Philadelphia's Viral Hepatitis Prevention Coordinator
Alex Shirreffs, Philadelphia’s Viral Hepatitis Prevention Coordinator

Alex Shirreffs, MPH, Viral Hepatitis Prevention Coordinator with the Philadelphia Department of Health. She was recognized for her collaboration with Hep B United Philadelphia to screen area AAPI communities. Her work ensures that hepatitis B remains a public health priority, and she serves as a critical liaison between Hep B United and other Adult Viral Hepatitis Prevention Coordinators nationwide.

Mohammed Abdul-Kadir, coordinator of Hepatitis B Coalition of Washington
Mohammed Abdul-Kadir, coordinator of Hepatitis B Coalition of Washington

Mohammed Abdul-Kadir, MPH, MSIS, coordinator of the Hepatitis B Coalition of Washington, (now part of International Community Health Services in Seattle), is recognized for his commitment to eradicating hepatitis B in Washington’s AAPI communities by bringing together stakeholders from across the state and providing free screening, education and linkage to care for thousands of individuals.

Hepatitis B civil rights advocate Nadine Shiroma
Hepatitis B civil rights advocate Nadine Shiroma

Nadine Shiroma, a national hepatitis B civil rights advocate from Seattle, has worked tirelessly with the Hepatitis B Foundation to eliminate hepatitis B-related discrimination in the United States. She is recognized for advocacy on behalf of hepatitis B-infected health care students, which resulted in hepatitis B being added as a protected condition under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The fight now has been taken to the U.S. Department of Defense, which currently bars infected applicants and discharges military personnel diagnosed with hepatitis B.

Moon Chen, director of the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training.
Moon Chen, director of the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training.

Moon Chen, Ph.D., director of the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training in Sacramento, Calif., is recognized for making hepatitis B a priority for academic and public health research, and for continuing to research and identify effective hepatitis B prevention, screening and referral-to-care intervention models that can be replicated nationwide.

For more information about joining Hep B United, click here.

Join Hep B United, CDC DVH, HBF, AAPCHO and CDC NPIN for a Twitter Chat!

Mark you calendars! Join Hep B United,CDC Division of Viral Hepatitis , HBF, AAPCHO and CDC NPIN for a Twitter Chat on Tuesday, November 19th, 3pm EST to discuss the Know Hepatitis B campaign and what Hep B United, partners and coalition members are doing to raise awareness and increase hepatitis B testing and vaccination among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). Hepatitis B is the leading cause of liver cancer and a major health disparity among AAPIs who are disproportionately impacted by HBV. Continue reading "Join Hep B United, CDC DVH, HBF, AAPCHO and CDC NPIN for a Twitter Chat!"