Cynthia Lee/ NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health/ New York, NY
Hello, I am Cynthia, a first-year graduate student from the School of Global Public Health, studying health policy and management.
Since my undergrad degree, being a global health study student, health rights and accessibility to affordable health care is always issues I’m focusing on.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a global pandemic since 2019, and it is still ongoing at this point. During the pandemic around 2020-2021, several studies have found racial disparities in access to health care, with a disproportionate share of the COVID-19 mortality and morbidity burden being borne by racial and ethnic minorities. Many studies have focused on COVID-19-related health disparities experienced by Black and Hispanic Americans, but Asian Americans are one of the lesser-noticed groups. That is to say, for Asian Americans, language barriers and the gap between information and resource sending are always an issue in the community. Not to mention mental health works among minorities and Asian American children and their families.
I am interested in knowing what kind of government obligations exist under human rights law to address COVID-19-related health disparities experienced by Asian Americans and what enforcement mechanisms exist against the U.S. government.
I’m going to work with Dr. Keng-Yen Huang, the Associate Professor of Population Health and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, working on several projects related to the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health.
So most of the research I’m joining will focus on mental health intervention projects for minority children and their families. The projects include implementation strategy development to broaden child mental health knowledge dissemination and evidence-based intervention utilization in diverse community-based organizations and pediatric service settings where Asian American families are most likely to seek services.
Through my work during the summer, I would like to work deep into the health disparity issue among Asian Americans and have a chance to walk myself into the community and talk to family face to face to know about the difficulties they face during the difficult time of the pandemic.
