A new nationwide survey is seeking to gauge how the Filipino American community feels about COVID-19 vaccinations.
The project is being launched by the Filipino Young Leaders Program (FYLPRO), through its Tayo project, the group announced in a recent release.
The MAGPABAKUNA na Tayo (“Measuring and Gathering data on Pilipino/a/x American Behaviors, Attitudes, and Knowledge Understanding the Novel CoronAvirus vaccines”) study is a 20-minute survey that will be conducted online and via telephone by Tayo and community partners the Council of Young Filipinx Americans in Medicine (CYFAM).
The survey is open to all Filipino Americans over the age of 18 and will be conducted in English and Filipino. Participants can answer whether or not they have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Led by Tayo medical advisor Dr. Melissa Palma, a board certified preventive medicine and public health physician in Chicago, IL, the survey team includes CYFAM members Abigail Ahyong, Giana Apoderado, Neille John Apostol, Siegried Chen, Diana Del Rosario, Sheena Garcia, Samantha Sumait, Matthew Roces, Mericien Venzon, and Megan Yee, with additional support provided by FYLPRO board members and Tayo core leaders Mark Calaguas, Jobel Vecino and Leezel Tanglao.
Tayo hopes the survey will not only improve data collection on Filipino Americans specifically, but also assist in the disaggregation of data on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities at large.
“The longstanding practice of aggregating socioeconomic, public health, and other data under one broad AAPI category oftentimes obscures pernicious inequalities at the individual ethnic community level,” the group said in the release.
The survey comes as Fil-Ams continue to be underrepresented in medical research, despite being the second largest Asian ethnic group in the United States.
“Despite making up over 6% of the U.S. population, less than 0.2% of the National Institutes of Health budget is dedicated to studying the health of Asian American populations,” stated Dr. Palma.
“Oftentimes academic researchers label immigrant groups like Filipinos as ‘hard to reach,’ but in my experience it’s often that they aren’t sending the right people to ask and engage with us,” she continued.
Tanglao, FYLPRO president and Tayo project direct said, said the survey results will help create a deeper understanding of the pandemic’s effect on the Fil-Am community.
“The lack of disaggregated data has made it difficult to fully understand the impact of COVID-19 on the Filipino community. This is the first step in better telling our story,” she said.
The survey, which is supported by a grant from the CDC Foundation, can be accessed at redcap.link/FYLPROTayoSurvey. Analysis of results is expected in late fall 2022. For more information about the survey, visit https://bit.ly/TayoVaccineSurveyInfo. (AJPress)
