Episode 129: Asian Women for Health – with Chien-Chi Huang

Chien-Chi Huang is the founder of the Asian Breast Cancer Project and the Executive Director of Asian Women for Health, a peer-led, community-based network dedicated to advancing Asian women’s health and wellbeing through education, advocacy and support. Her personal breast cancer journey has led her to participate in national and local efforts on health equity and racial justice.

During this episode, you will hear Chien-Chi talk about:

• What inspired her to start the Asian Breast Cancer Project and Asian Women for Health
• How Asian Women for Health has helped Asian women speak out about their experiences with racism and isolation during the pandemic
• Her own experience with racism – and how it led her to create the “Racism is a Virus” public service announcement video
• Her career journey in Taiwan and the United States, through advertising, video production and motherhood
• How “The Three Cs” method can help people interrupt their negative thinking and support their mental well-being

On June 5, 2021, join Chien-Chi at the Asian American Mental Health Forum! The event is free and open to all. Learn more at https://www.asianwomenforhealth.org/asian-american-mental-health-forum.html and register at http://bit.ly/AAMHF2021

To find out more about Chien-Chi and Asian Women for Health, check out the resources below:

Website: https://www.asianwomenforhealth.org/

Email: info@asianwomenforhealth.org

“Racism is a Virus” PSA (video) and other anti racism resources: https://www.asianwomenforhealth.org/anti-racism.html

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The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Hello, and welcome to the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. And on today’s episode, I’m very excited to be speaking with Chien-Chi Huang. Chien-Chi is the founder of the Asian Breast Cancer Project and the Executive Director of Asian Women for Health. Her personal cancer journey led her to participate in national as well as local efforts on health equity and racial justice. Her remarkable passion for the community has changed the healthcare landscape for Asian women and created a pipeline of future leaders and peer health educators. Chien-Chi welcome to the podcast.

Chien-Chi Huang: Thank you Carolyn for having me.

Carolyn Kiel: I’m so excited to have you here and really interested in learning more about your own personal story and what inspired you to to create these initiatives. So how did your personal experience with cancer inspire and lead you to start the Asian Breast Cancer Project?

Chien-Chi Huang: Sure. So I’m an immigrant from Taiwan. And when I first came to this country as an international student, I can barely carry a conversation in English. And so when I was 40 years old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

And even though my husband is American was, was not Asian. I still have a difficult time navigating the US healthcare system. And I also realized that a lot of the Asian women having difficulties you know getting the support and information they need. So because my personal experience, I feel like, you know, when I was doing the treatment, I was looking for longing for other Asian women who look like me, feel like me, think like me to share the experience, but I couldn’t find any.

So after my diagnosis and after my treatment, I I recognized that, you know, there’s a need for this because there’s no program or services catering to Asian women. So I decided to to share my story, I went to a a Chinese newspaper and I shared about my story. And I said that I would like to meet with other Asian cancer survivors and so we can start some kind of speakers bureau. And then several Asian women saw the newspaper article and then reached out to me. And then that was the beginning of the Asian Breast Cancer Project.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, wow. Yeah. And you know, you mentioned really having this, this need and desire to have a community of Asian women who sort of basically knew your, what the experience was that you’re going through it and kind of have that community while you were going through this challenging time.

Yeah, I actually, I, I understand from listening to reading some of your your, your work and listening to some of your other interviews, that there are like some relatively, I would say unique or specific health related challenges within the Asian community itself you know, around I would say stigma and other things. I’m wondering, could you shed a little light on some of those things that you encountered while you were going through this?

Chien-Chi Huang: Sure. So as I mentioned, I think that, you know, because cultural and linguistic barrier I, I personally and professionally witnessed Asian women being misdiagnosed, mistreated, and misinformed.

So right now we’re actually having a new initiative. We’re working with different ESL providers to create a health curriculum so we can improve the health literacies among immigrants and refugees, and also to connect them with the local resources. And we find that this is a really good way to destigmatize you know, the the the situation so they don’t feel like, you know, they’re, they’re they’re stigmatized to wanting to learn about different diseases. And so most people don’t know that cancer, lung cancer is the leading cause of death for both Asian men and women. And in fact there, I think 40% of the the people who are diagnosed with the non small non the non-small cancer lung cancer is of Asian descent and who are non-smoker and and breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed breast cancer among all Asian American women.

Yeah. And then there’s hepatitis B which is also disproportionately impacting Asian Americans and could lead to liver cancer. So this is something that’s unique for the Asian population, because all the other population the, the number one killer is heart disease.

Carolyn Kiel: Right. Wow. Yeah. And that’s the, those are some really sobering findings. And, you know, I, I imagine some of the challenges, you know, obviously around language and, and, and stigma, and might even be just getting people to go to the doctor when they’re having symptoms in the first place and get that sort of checked out as well.

Chien-Chi Huang: Yeah. And, and, and that’s why education and outreach and awareness is so important because we know that in Massachusetts, Asian American actually has the highest insurance coverage rate, but we have the lowest preventative care utilization rate. Yeah. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: So, yeah, that’s a lot of education. I know that’s a lot of what you do for the, with the project as well. So you know, and, you know, since then you’ve also expanded, you know, beyond breast cancer and focusing on that to focus more broadly around physical and mental health

Chien-Chi Huang: Right.

Carolyn Kiel: Issues, challenges as well, because, you know, I understand from your story that while you were going through the treatments you experienced a lot of, you know, sort of distressing and confusing, physical and mental symptoms from some of the treatments that you were on. And I imagine that must’ve been challenging, not really even being aware of what these side effects could be from the types of treatments you were getting.

Chien-Chi Huang: Yes. And you know, I’m a true, I’m a believer of the mind body connection. And I talked to many of the cancer survivors, cancer patients, and I realized that most people before their diagnosis, they all experienced some kind of major setback in their life. And so and, and also during my cancer treatment, I was prescribed to prednisone, which is a very strong steroid. And I actually experienced a very rare side effect where I, you know developed, I became paranoid and also I had a psychotic manic episode. And I, I thought that my, my in-laws and my husband were trying to, you know, kill me and cut me off from the outside world. So it’s really something that you, you wouldn’t realize unless you, you personally lived the experience. Yeah. So mental health is something that’s very close to my heart. And it’s something that, you know, we don’t talk about, but there’s really a need. Because you know, when, when, you know, physically, if we’re, if we get, if we got hurt we, you know, we will seek the help of the professional, but then when we have mental health needs, most of the Asian Americans would not seek professional help. So it’s important for us to see people to, to speak up and to also to share their stories. So we won’t feel so afraid and and in alone. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And just as you said, that, that sense of community and just sharing of information and experiences is so, so important during a challenging time like that. Absolutely wow. So, you know, the, the Asian Breast Cancer Project was kind of the start. That was the, what was founded initially. And then you went on shortly after to start your nonprofit, Asian Women for Health, which focuses more broadly on physical and mental health for Asian women. So how did, how did you get the inspiration to actually start a nonprofit to focus on this?

Chien-Chi Huang:  Right. So as I mentioned, I I went to to talk to the media and then afterwards I thought that I need some training. So I went to talk to the Massachusetts Komen foundation and I said that, you know, do you have a program that you train, that you train survivors like me to do outreach education? And they say, no, why don’t you start one? So I was invited to create a program. So I did some research and I found a program that’s catering for the African-American community.

It’s called the Witness Project. And I adapted that for the Asian community. So that’s, that’s the genesis of Asian Women for Health. Yeah. And as you mentioned, we expanded and we, we don’t want to be a disease specific program. We wanted to actively promote health and also with a holistic approach, that’s including emotional wellbeing.

So we’ve been doing annual conferences and we have a program called achieving whole health, where we, we teach participants how to set and maintain personal health goal. And we pair them up with a health buddy so they can support each other during the eight weeks.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. So it is sort of a peer to peer support mainly for, yeah. Okay. So like pairing survivors or people who are going through similar circumstances

Chien-Chi Huang: Yes, Asian women. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. No, that’s, that’s really great. So how. You know, how have, since you’ve started it, how has Asian Women for Health grown in the, in the past few years?

Chien-Chi Huang: So I will say that we are doing more and more advocacy work. I’m sure you know, that, you know, cause you, I see that you’re in New York you know, since the pandemic there, you know, the anti-Asian incidents have surged tremendously. There almost, you know, they’re over 3,800 incidents against Asian-Americans and especially towards Asian women there, you know, Asian women are three times more likely to be attacked than Asian men.

So before the pandemic, we, there’s already a higher rate of anxiety, depression among Asian women. And after the pandemic, you know, because of the isolation and also the anti Asian incidents you know you know, a lot of the Asian women are afraid to go out in the public. And so we’ve been trying to provide monthly events virtual events as a way to help people to break the isolation and also to disseminate health information.

So And like I said, we, we, we realized that we’re becoming, doing more and more advocacy work. And I personally actually encountered a verbal attack on the subway in Boston. Yeah. So because of that experience, I I reached out to animation studio and they helped me create a PSA called Racism is a Virus. So we, we put that on our website and we also curated some anti racism resources, and we want people to screen the PSA and we also develop a downloadable discussion guide so people can use it to to help you know, to digital town hall or hold private watch parties, so they can talk about how racism impacts all of us and how we can show up for each other.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s really great. I mean that you provide that level of support because yeah, I mean the, the, the incidents of racism and violence targeting the Asian community and especially Asian women has been like really disturbing and definitely something that’s certainly been on my mind as as we read the news and see all the incidents going on.

Yeah. And I’m just thinking it, I think it’s great that you have these resources to help people. And I imagine that the whole, the whole sense of community that Asian Women for Health is meant to build it also, I would hope in, in some ways, kinds of, at least helps bring people together and let them know that, you know, they’re, they’re not alone and they don’t have to be by themselves with the, when they’re experiencing these these, this horrible racism and violence as well.

I was kinda curious about the the connection between mental health and just sort of living in this heightened time of, of racism and violence in the Asian community here in the U S you know, if it really is, because I I’d imagine that you know, a lot of people, at least, certainly a lot of people that I’ve known from the Asian community, sometimes there’s like a, like, kind of almost like a shame or something like it’s not normally something that you talk about. So I would imagine that’s a big change for people to come out and say like, no, I, I experienced this this racism or this, this violent act. And I want to tell people that this is what happened, or I want to talk within my own community to kind of process it and, and see that. So is that something that Asian Women for Health helps with as well?

Chien-Chi Huang: Yeah. So we’re hoping to to disseminate information through social media and we’re trying to have like storytelling training so we can teach Asian women how to speak up and how to be more visible, visible and vocal during this time. Yeah. So those are the kinds of things that we’re planning to do. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s really great. Yeah. I think, you know, the sense of community and and support is even more important now than than perhaps even, you know, before the pandemic or a couple of years ago. And that’s really wonderful. Wow. So, I mean, long-term, what are your goals for Asian Women for Health? Are there things that you want to expand into that you’re, you’re not currently, that you haven’t gotten a chance to do yet, or other things that you want to start doing?

Chien-Chi Huang: Well, thank you for the question. I actually been thinking about that a lot lately. So So we have been doing a lot more research and focus groups, cause I think that nowadays a lot of the public health agencies or health centers, they also wanted to find way to reach out to the Asian community in a more culturally responsive way. So we actually yeah, next week we’re doing a focus group on hepatitis B and liver cancer. And then we also have planned to do focus group on dementia as well as diabetes. And these are all diseases that are impacting Asian Americans, but there there’s not that much data as available. So we’ve been, you know, taking upon a more active role in working with other agencies to collect data and to get information.

And the other thing that I was thinking about to do, which is more on the personal level is that i, I wanted to create a community to, to support Asian women entrepreneurs who had products or services that nourish our mind, body and souls. So I think that we all wanted to create products or services that that’s for ourselves, but, but then we don’t see it on the market. So that’s something that I think it’s needed. And Yeah. So I’m, I’m really excited about that. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s great. Wow. That’s such an amazing expansion and I want to ask you, but you know, before, even before you started the Asian Breast Cancer Project, what was your background? Like what type of work were you doing before that?

Chien-Chi Huang: Oh, so when I was in Taiwan, I worked for advertising agency. Yeah. But then I stopped the agency work because I feel like you know, the work is kind of superficial and very, very stressful and low pay. So it looked very glorious, you know, like working for the advertising, but it’s not really, really that great.

And then when I came to United States, I I got my master degree from BU and I kind of make a shift to do video, video production. And yeah, so my last project I was doing I was the associate producer for a documentary for WGBH. We did a documentary about Taiwan. It’s called Tug of War. And and then after that I, you know, I was pregnant with my second child and my husband, you know change career and we moved to Washington DC. So I stayed home for seven years as a stay at home mom. Yeah. Wow. So that was my background in video.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh my goodness. Yeah. And that’s just so intriguing to me because I do have a lot of people on the show who will talk about making career changes and kind of how they did it and just, you know, you can really have backgrounds in, in.

You know, we, we all have multiple careers throughout our lives these days. So you can have just different experiences and backgrounds and different industries and really just, you know, pivot. And that’s, it, it sounds like that’s something that you were able to do you know, relatively successfully throughout your life is sort of make those career shifts and yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s really cool.

Chien-Chi Huang: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: And it kind of sounds like there’s, I mean, thinking of advertising and then I know the, the other types of work, I kind of see like a theme of, of storytelling in a way. So yeah. Yeah. That makes the tie.

Chien-Chi Huang:  Yeah. Yeah. I I’m still you know You know, I always look for ways to channel my creativity to through my work. So yeah, so the PSA, the Racism is a Virus PSA, I got to, you know, conceptualize the whole you know video. So that was a fun project to do. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, no, that’s great. I think that’s something that that we need that we need more of as we try to build these connections with each other is just how do we effectively tell our stories and share our own stories, whether it’s getting the courage to do it in the first place, and then how do we communicate that with people?

So I think that’s, that’s really, really wonderful. Wow. So, you know, I mean, things are really. You know, quite challenging now we’re still, we’re, we’re still in the middle of the pandemic, regardless of what people may or may not think. But you know, it’s, it’s been a challenging, you know, several months for almost everybody and certainly for you know, communities like the Asian American community that have been just experiencing the, the increased racism and violence.

So I don’t know, as. Are there things that you would recommend for people, whether it’s an Asian women or really anyone, I guess who are kind of feeling like they’re, they’re starting to struggle with their mental health now? Sort of any advice or any guidance that you might give them for that?

Chien-Chi Huang: I think that I would just, you know emphasize again, the mind body connection.

So you know, definitely we, we, you know our achieving whole health program, we teach people to you know, do the mind shift, like, you know, cause we tend to come in with a negative mind mindset. So we asked people to do the three Cs, which is to catch and to check and to change. So whenever you do to catch yourself, when you have negative thinking, then you wanted to check it against the reality, then you know, you, you can make the change, you know, reframe it and to, you know changing in, in a more positive way.

So that’s how we, you know, and also to practice self care, you know, us Asian women, we tend to put everybody’s needs before our own, but we also, you know trying to get people to recognize that if, if you, if you’re not well, you can not take care of other people. So to take care of self is essential is how you can sustain yourself. And so you can take care of other people.

Carolyn Kiel:  Yeah. And self-care is absolutely important, especially, you know, in times where there are a lot of people who feel and have additional responsibilities and to take care of their family or friends or their wider community to think of that. And yeah. And then the three Cs, you know, sounds like a really great way to just, you know, kind of try to live and experience and be here in the present as opposed to, you know, the past or the future, just be mindful of that. Well, that’s great. That’s really great tips. Yeah. Thank you for sharing those. And you know, you’re, you’re based in the Boston area, is that correct?

Chien-Chi Huang: Yes.

Carolyn Kiel: Asian Women for Health, I think it’s largely now, is it mainly focused in, in Boston or Massachusetts or are there resources that it has for outside of Boston area?

Chien-Chi Huang: So before the pandemic we do in-person outreach education and it’s mostly in the greater Boston area, but since the pandemic, we were able to pivot and to provide our programming through technology. So You know we have an annual conference called Asian American mental health forum. Last year when we did the, we were able to do the conference virtually and we have over 230 participants. And people from even Canada or Germany come to join. Yeah. Join us. So this year, the conference is going to take place on June 5th, Saturday, June 5th.

And I can send you the link and then people can register it’s free and open to all.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, that’s wonderful. Yeah. I’ll, I’ll make sure that that’s in the show notes so that people can just click on it and register from there. That’s great. Thank you. Yeah. Wow. So yeah. What is the best way for people to get in touch with you or you know, get in touch with Asian Women for Health, if they want to learn more about it?

Chien-Chi Huang: Yeah, they can just email info at asianwomenforhealth dot org. Yeah. And our website is www.Asianwomenforhealth.org.

Carolyn Kiel: Okay, perfect. Yep. I’ll put that in the show notes as well. So

Chien-Chi Huang: thank you.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. That’s that’s wonderful. Yeah. Chien-Chi thank you so much for spending time with us to, to share your own story and talk about all the amazing work that you’re doing. You know, as we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Chien-Chi Huang: Yeah, so I want people to know that Asian American community is not monolithic. We’re a very diverse, diverse community. We are 23 million people strong, accounting for 7% in the entire US population. And we are not all healthy, wealthy and well educated. We’re not a model minority. And we welcome people to volunteer with us. Even remotely you can volunteer. You don’t have to be Asian or a woman to volunteer with us.

Carolyn Kiel: Wonderful. No, that’s great. Yeah. Well, I’m so excited to to share these resources with my audience. So yeah. Thank you again, Chien-Chi for for spending time with us today. Really appreciate it.

Chien-Chi Huang: Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give us a shoutout on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website and sign up for our free newsletter at www.beyond6seconds.com. Until next time.