Asians are the fastest growing immigrant populations in the United States. Filipinos and Filipino Americans (FAs) represent the third largest Asian group, with about 3.9 million in 2016 (US Census Bureau, 2016). Filipino immigrants have filled labor shortages in agriculture, the military, and nursing. FAs who fill these jobs and their families need to be healthy. Unfortunately, FAs have a higher prevalence of chronic diseases (diabetes and cardiovascular diseases) than whites, blacks, and other Asian groups (Bloom & Black, 2016). Other health issues include cancer, dementia, depression, gout, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. There is limited research on healthcare needs, priorities, and research engagement of FAs; most research has been conducted in New York, California, and Hawaii. The health priorities of FAs in other states are not known and may differ accordingly, depending on the locality.

This project aims to create a nationwide network of FA-PCOR “nayon” (or villages) to engage FAs in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative effectiveness research (CER) to promote patient outcomes. The proposed project will create FA-PCOR “nayons” in five states where there are significant FA populations: California, Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, and New York. It will utilize the infrastructure of the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA). A PNAA member who has been engaged in research will lead each “nayon” as the academic researcher collaborator (ARC) in partnership with a patient advocate leader (PAL). Both will recruit FA patient groups (patients, families, caregivers, and friends), community organization representatives, researchers, healthcare providers, policy makers, community leaders, and other stakeholders to attend bimonthly focus groups to discuss issues important to the FA community, health priorities, and how to best engage FAs in PCOR and CER.

Data from these focus groups will be disseminated back to the community for feedback and action points. Each “nayon” will create a stakeholder advisory committee (SAC). The SAC and other “nayon” members will be engaged in these iterative processes until the completion of a toolkit, the PCOR Community Capacity Building and Engagement Toolkit for Filipino Americans. This toolkit will include a communication plan, capacity-building and engagement strategies, and resources based upon the identified needs of each of the FA-PCOR “nayon.” It will be useful for clinicians and researchers to increase their understanding of what FAs need to make informed healthcare decisions and their potential engagement in PCOR/CER. The FA-PCOR infrastructure can potentially be adapted as a model to engage other Asian subgroups.

Project collaborators will include FA patient advocate leaders (PALs), academic collaborative researchers (ARCs), nurses and healthcare providers, nonprofit/advocacy organizations, friends, families, and caregivers, service providers, researchers, policy makers, community leaders, and other community members as well as consultants who are experts in FA health and the community.