Welcome to Conversations With the Winners.
I’m Jacinta Gauda, here on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Today, our conversation is with Dr. Joyce Javier.
Dr. Javier is an attending physician
at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
She's associate professor of clinical pediatrics
at Keck School of Medicine
at the University of Southern California.
She's a winner of the 2021 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Award for Health Equity.
Welcome, Dr. Javier.
Thank you, Jacinta, it's such a pleasure to be here.
Let's jump right in.
Tell us about the Filipino Family Health Initiative.
Well, the Filipino Family Health Initiative
is a nationally recognized program
in community-based participatory research
that is based at Children's Hospital Los Angeles
and the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
Together, our mission is to create a culture of healthy parenting
and mental health among Filipino families.
Thank you, Dr. Javier.
Talk to us a little bit about how it relates,
this work relates to health equity.
Yes, so the Filipino Family Health Initiative
delivers the Incredible Years®,
which is an evidence-based parent training program
for Filipino families as a prevention tool
to prevent mental health disparities
in the Filipino community.
Together, we conduct research focused on this prevention,
and we promote equity in child health,
specifically by preventing depression and suicidal behavior.
Filipinos are the third largest Asian subgroup
in the United States
and the largest Asian subgroup in California.
But despite their size,
the number of research studies
and programs for this group are woefully low.
Dr. Javier, you saw that mental, emotional,
and behavioral health issues among young people
in your community were all too common.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yeah, so mental health has a lot of stigma attached to it,
and so it's difficult for youth to talk about their feelings
with family members.
And one of the studies that I found
was that 45.6% of Filipina teenagers
had seriously thought about committing suicide in the past year,
and then half of those teens actually attempted.
So that's why we asked the community,
"How can we address such a highly stigmatized topic?"
And so their answer was to focus on prevention.
Dr. Javier, earlier,
we spoke about how COVID-19
actually did impact the community.
Can you tell us a little bit more
about how it was particularly devastating to the community?
Yes, so for Filipinos, one out of four Filipinos
is a frontline healthcare worker.
And although they make up 6% of the entire US population,
Filipino nurses were especially hit hard
in terms of mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic.
And then on top of that, because of
our families, members passing away,
the mental health impact of that
has also affected our community, including all youth.
It's a mental health crisis, unfortunately, right now
that we're dealing with
in terms of the aftermath of COVID.
Dr. Javier, the award focuses on systems change.
Talk to us a little bit about how you apply the principles
or innovative practices of systems change
to the work that you're doing.
So what we first did was try to make mental health
a shared value in the community
by conducting focus groups,
so that we could create this shared definition
of adolescent mental health and wellbeing.
And then our efforts culminated
in a community-wide conference
that combined the best science, faith leaders,
educators, and the arts all coming together
to decrease mental health stigma.
The third area of action
is called transforming healthcare systems.
So what we did with our project is that we worked
with the LA County Department of Mental Health
and used our research findings
to advocate for the Incredible Years®
to be added as a billable preventive intervention.
And then the fourth action area
is strengthening integration of health services and systems.
So we did this by connecting primary care,
and schools, and churches, and community organizations
to behavioral evidence-based practices.
How important do you think that cultural connection is,
Dr. Javier?
That is an excellent question.
It's so integral.
Research shows that the more we're proud
of our ethnic identity and our cultural background,
the higher self-esteem we'll have,
the more positive mental health
and outcomes that you'll have.
Take us through a few lessons learned,
how we can benefit from the lessons
that you have learned over the years.
Yes.
So the first lesson, I think, is really the power
of community-based participatory research.
So we asked teens, we asked parents,
we asked church leaders, educators,
mental health providers, government leaders,
and their collective answer was to not wait
until their teen years to really focus
on building strong parent-child relationships
during the school-age years by offering these workshops.
The second lesson learned is the importance of ‘kapwa’,
which means shared identity in this work.
FFHI is a great example of the proverb,
"If you wanna go fast, go alone,
but if you wanna go far, go together."
So in a sense, it's because of our shared identity
that we were able to work together
and help other communities.
Dr. Javier, what does receiving the award
for the work that you do mean to you?
Well, this award is deeply meaningful.
It's really enabled us to be acknowledged
for sharing the gifts and strengths
of the Filipino culture with others,
so my hope, really, is to spread the power
of positive parenting to as many families as possible.
Dr. Javier,
on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
and the Asian & Pacific Islander Caucus for Public Health,
thank you for all the work you do,
and congratulations, again, on your award.
Thank you very much, Jacinta,
and thank you to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
and the API Caucus for Public Health.
It is truly an honor,
and I look forward to continuing this work.
Thank you for joining us for this conversation.
And you are invited to more conversations
with the 2021 winners of the RWJF Award for Health Equity.
And you can learn more about all of the winners
at RWJF.org
I'm Jacinta Gauda, and thank you for watching.