What is PACH?
The PACH Initiative is a community-campus collaboration launched to develop a community health workforce pipeline that will create a new cadre of health care leaders for the AANHPI community. It is led by the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program, Asian American Pacific Islander Health Research Group, and the Asian American Research Center.
With funding support from the California Endowment, PACH established an advisory board composed of faculty members, students, and community healthcare leaders.
Field Study Internship
This Fall (2022), we are proud to partner with the Chinese Hospital of San Francisco to launch our pilot field study internship program!
This field research internship program is a culminating experience that fulfills a requirement for the Certificate in Asian American Community Health (CAACH) offered by the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program in the Ethnic Studies Department.
The PACH field study internship pilot program offers a transformative and meaningful work-based learning experience for undergraduate students pursuing careers in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) community health. The course is co-developed by faculty, community health practitioners, and staff at the S.F. Chinese Hospital.
The goal of this program is to expose students to the work of the Chinese Hospital and to guide them in developing and completing a research project on some aspect of community health. Students will learn about the history of the hospital and its service to the community, patient demographics, epidemiology, and the socio-economic factors that shape health disparities. They will also acquire important skills–such as research design, ethics, interviewing, communication strategies, and data analysis– that are essential to conducting community health research.
San Francisco Chinese Hospital
The Chinese Hospital of San Francisco is a unique healthcare provider with a long and rich history of serving the local community that dates back to the late 1800’s. The Tung Wah Dispensary was established in 1899 to provide health care services to the underserved Chinese community who faced discrimination and limited access to public services. The dispensary was staffed by both Western trained physicians and Chinese herbalists. In 1923, following the destruction of the 1906 earthquake and fire, fifteen community organizations rallied to form the Chinese Hospital Association, a new non-profit public benefit corporation. Members of the Board of Trustees raised funds to construct a new facility with expanded services.
In 1925, the Chinese Hospital opened its doors at 835 Jackson Street, becoming the first and only institution of its kind in the country. In 1979, the Chinese Hospital built a new health care facility to meet new hospital requirements as well as the growing demands for its services. Amidst the emergence of managed care in the 1980s, the Chinese Hospital and its medical staff formed a non-profit physicians association, Chinese Community Health Care Association (CCHCA).
Today, the Chinese Hospital continues its mission to provide culturally competent care to Chinese immigrants and surrounding Bay Area communities. In fact, by taking proactive community efforts and providing quality care during the pandemic, the Chinese Hospital has kept Chinatown COVID cases at its lowest in the nation, despite the fact that San Francisco is the second most densely populated area.