Common Collective has partnered with Asian Women for Health!
Asian Women for Health is located right next door to Emerson’s campus in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. Their mission is to create a supportive and informative online community that empowers Asian women and others to share their stories and receive access to medical care. They also work to provide free access to cervical and breast cancer screening.
One of Asian Women for Health’s goals for this year is to promote All of Us, a research program run by the National Institute of Health. All of Us is constructing a medical database of saliva, urine, and blood samples that accurately reflects the genetic makeup of the United States population. This will give future research projects a larger sample pool for testing medicines and researching genetic conditions that certain cultural groups may be predisposed to.
Due to a long history of racial injustice in medicine, Asian American communities have good reason to be wary of donating such highly personal samples to the National Institute of Health for research purposes. There is also a strong preference for Eastern medicinal practices among the older Asian population.
Common Collective is currently creating content for Asian Women for Health’s social media platforms. Their advertisement campaign seeks to inform Asian women about the benefits of joining All of Us and donating samples to benefit equitable, ethical, and wide-reaching medical research. The goal is to reduce bias against sample donation within the Asian American community and inspire confidence in the All of Us program. To reach the widest possible audience, this CC team is filming an advertisement, designing posters, and translating all materials into Chinese languages.
Collectivists Involved
Isabella Chu (project leader)
Ethan Scholl
Emily Martinez
Kiara Ford
Michaelis Jang