Asian Health Equity Alliance (AHEA):
The Asian Health Equity Alliance (AHEA) was established in May 2021 through a grant from the CDC Foundation with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The immediate goal of this grant is to address the vaccination needs of the Asian community, more specifically Asian immigrants and those with low English proficiency.
The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit and the sole entity created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s critical health protection work. MAHA is honored to be selected as one of the five agencies nationwide receiving this two-year award.


Seafood Consumption and Mercury Study Program:
The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health was awarded a five-year, $2.6 million research grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to develop a community participatory research project for reducing mercury and PCB exposure for Chicago’s Asian population. MAHA is one of the key community partners involved in this grant application. Asian women from Chicago Chinatown and Uptown will be recruited to participate in the free mercury testing and receive education about healthy seafood consumption choices. This research will measure the levels of mercury and estimate levels of PCBs — another pollutant known to concentrate in fish — in Asians living in Chicago. The findings will help researchers and community partners to develop targeted text message-based interventions to subgroups of Asians that have the highest risk of having mercury- or PCB-related health problems. The text messages will include information on safe fish consumption as well as general health messages.