Van Herazria was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States as a refugee when he was two years old. She grew up in the Logan neighborhood of North Philadelphia. Although her family spoke Vietnamese at her home, her English skills were minimal.
“I grew up learning English on Sesame Street or going to school,” she said.
When she was 11 years old, her mother began having serious health problems. Herazria found herself in the role of health navigator, but she said she wasn’t ready for it yet.
“I was in middle school…I’m not an adult. I have the language skills, but I may not have the emotional skills yet to be able to process all this health information,” she recalls. . “The process was to help the parents make the appointment and just translate.”
After attending high school, Herazria went on to college and worked as a clinical pharmacist for 15 years. She once dreamed of returning to Vietnam to do her medical missionary work.
“To be honest, it always seemed like a faraway dream. Frankly, with three kids, I didn’t think it would happen anytime soon,” she said.
She is currently an associate professor in the Temple University School of Pharmacy and a clinical pharmacist in the Temple Department of Neurology, where she sees stroke and seizure patients.
“I realized I didn’t need to go overseas to make an impact because there are so many needs here in North Philadelphia,” she said.
That’s because here in Philadelphia, Vietnamese-speaking patients experience serious health problems due to the language barrier.
“We don’t typically think that there are health disparities for Asian Americans, because when we look at large datasets, we see that the whole idea of the ‘model minority’ myth, that Asian Americans are This is because you can see the idea of being healthy, being wealthy, and having good health. There are no health disparities,” she said.
In 2022, Herazlia created “Viet-Capacity”, a community-based stroke education program that prioritizes outreach to the Vietnamese-speaking population in the region.
With the help of Temple School of Pharmacy’s Vietnamese-speaking alumni, about 15 ambassadors who work in small groups, the program has reached about 800 members of Philadelphia’s Vietnamese community to date. Masu.
“The goal of VietCapacity was to equip and empower Vietnamese-speaking pharmacists with the primary competency… to establish leadership and communicate the signs, symptoms, and risk factors of stroke in Vietnamese.” “It was about giving them a good education,” she said. .
In Phase 1 of the program, Viet-Capacity partnered with the Philadelphia Police Department to create an audio simulation of what an emergency call would sound like if a community member called 911 to report a stroke.
The program also aims to address lifestyle issues that contribute to stroke risk in the Vietnamese community, such as smoking. According to a study by Stanford Medicine, 28% of deaths in Vietnamese adult men and 85% of lung cancer-related deaths are due to smoking.
“We know that compared to other Asian subgroups, Vietnamese people have very high rates of smoking, especially among Vietnamese men,” she says.
One of the most common health problems is cardiovascular disease, which is mainly caused by smoking habits.
“Part of the education pharmacists did in community-based education was talking about risk factors for stroke, high blood pressure and cholesterol,” she says.
The program also helps Vietnamese-speaking pharmacists feel comfortable communicating with patients in Vietnamese. Herazria said she is also using the project to teach pharmacists about different dialects.
“While we were working in small groups, some pharmacists spoke Vietnamese in northern and southern dialects,” she said. “In fact, one of the strengths of our program is the ability to use different representations, and that’s the only difference between general and specialized language.”
Language issues for Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) are often a major barrier to health care services, Herazria said.
“Through the work I have done and the patients I see at Temple University,” she said. “We see patients endure many hardships, primarily when they have language barriers, limited English proficiency, and low health literacy, in addition to poverty, stigma, and discrimination. Masu.”
Approximately one in four Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) adults living in the United States is not proficient in English.
According to the Urban Institute, among six Asian subgroups: Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, only 50% of Vietnamese adults between the ages of 19 and 64 understand English. most highly restricted. A 2017 study found Vietnamese to be the most underrepresented language among healthcare workers in Philadelphia.
“If you look at Philadelphia, Vietnamese is the most underrated language,” Herazria said. “There are far more people who speak Vietnamese in Philadelphia than there are doctors who speak Vietnamese.”
Herazria said Betcapacity’s next step is to enroll in a school in North Philadelphia. She wants to teach refugee children about stroke education and meet young medical professionals they can look up to, she said.
“Many of these students come from under-resourced families,” she says. “They themselves are the first generation to have gone through the system. So I think if you have that kind of inspiration, you can build a pipeline from a much younger age. In addition to inspiring children, medical students are now able to actively engage with other immigrant groups.”
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