by Sarah Goh
Last year, Seattle’s International Community Health Services (ICHS) was awarded a nearly $1 million grant to expand HIV prevention services for its patients.
The three-year grant is part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative that allows the clinic to increase both HIV screening and the capacity of providers who can offer HIV treatment and training.
As a result, ICHS is able to expand its services while tackling the stigma attached to HIV in many Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) cultures. While rates of HIV are low in Asian Americans compared with other populations, Asian Americans also have the highest rate of undiagnosed HIV at 22%, or nearly 1 in 4 people, according to the CDC.
ICHS is a federally qualified health center with multiple locations throughout Seattle that cares for all patients regardless of their identity, ability to pay, or documentation status. It is the biggest health care provider for the AAPI community in Washington today.
When it comes to HIV care, says ICHS family medicine physician Hieu Pham, the first line of treatment is screening patients for HIV. However, stigmatization of HIV — especially within AAPI communities — has left many patients refusing to screen.
“When I say the word ‘HIV’ in Chinese [and Vietnamese], there’s already a huge stigma attached to it,” Dr. Pham said. “Patients immediately think, ‘I definitely don’t have the disease.’”
Many ICHS patients believe HIV is a part of Western culture — that only people from America or Europe can contract this immune-suppressing disease. In reality, HIV can be contracted not only as a result of sexual contact, but also through health care practices that aren’t performed hygienically, such as blood transfusions.
“Historically, a lot of the countries that our patients come from don’t have a robust health care system that screens their blood products,” Dr. Pham said. “As a result, a lot of…
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