Asian Americans are often overlooked in efforts to close gaps in health between minority groups and the general population, Nadia Islam, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, said at a symposium on health disparities. 

To change this, Dr. Islam and her colleagues in the Center for the Study of Asian American Health work with local organizations in New York City’s Korean, Filipino, Bangladeshi, and Indian communities to bring down rates of cardiovascular disease. They are supported by a three-year, $1 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health for Asian Americans or REACH FAR, which funds efforts such as blood pressure screening and monitoring programs and nutrition education that adapts standard recommendations to Asian American diets.

"It's all part of our efforts to demonstrate that the population health-equity approach has an impact and works," Dr. Islam tells Crain’s Health Pulse.

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