Ensuring Asian health and wellbeing
The challenge of maintaining the ‘healthy immigrant’ effect was one of a number of themes emerging from the recent conference on Asian Health and Wellbeing: Now and Into the Future, says organiser Dr Samson Tse.
The conference brought together experts from a variety of disciplines – medical and health sciences, social services, cultural studies, social sciences, and outcome evaluation – to discuss recent advances in Asian health.
Samson said an important theme was the need to adopt a positive approach to Asian health and wellbeing issues. “On the whole, the migrant population has relatively better health status than the host population because immigrants are screened before being allowed to come here.
“Overseas research shows that in about 10 to 20 years the migrant population’s health status converges with the host population. But we shouldn’t wait till that happens – the challenge is how to maintain the initial levels of health and wellbeing.”
Another aspect was to find out the resiliency factors and coping strategies used by those who coped successfully with the stresses and challenges of being new immigrants, such as coping with a new language, new job, and new cultural situations.
“For example, are strong family relationships a protective factor? What we learn can also be useful for other population groups in New Zealand?” Samson said.
The keynote speakers provided an international perspective on health and wellbeing issues affecting Asian communities. The speakers included Professor Yang Ke from Peking University, who talked of the cancer problem in China, and Professor Robyn Norton from the University of Sydney, who discussed road injury in the South East Asian region.
Professor Kam Bhui, from the University of London, discussed research that showed a link between discrimination and poor mental health and wellbeing – an area in which more work is needed in New Zealand, Samson said.
Other keynote speakers included Dr Albert Persaud, a senior adviser in the Department of Health in London, who discussed the issue of how to make policy work, and Mr Shun Au, of the Chinese Mental Health Association in London, who talked about alternative healing methods.
The conference was organised by the Centre of Asian Health Research and Evaluation Centre of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and was sponsored by the SPEaR Linkages programme. “We are extremely grateful for the sponsorship from SPEaR. The conference provided the opportunity for practitioners, researchers, policy makers and funders in government and private sectors to exchange and strengthen the knowledge base in Asian health issues. This will increase the capacity of communities and services to face the challenges posed by future changes in the Asia Pacific region,” he said.
For more information, contact s.tse@auckland.ac.nz
