Center is Awarded COVID-19 Rapid Response Project Funding from Robert Wood Johnson

Our Center directors Dr. Justin Chen and Dr. Juliana Chen have been awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Clinical Scholars program’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Project Funding, which was recently announced as a new funding mechanism to support equity-centered, innovative, cross-discipline projects, especially those focused on populations most impacted in the pandemic.

During  the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Anti-Asian discrimination and assaults have increased significantly, exerting negative consequences on both mental and physical health, especially for Asian youth. Unfortunately, Asian immigrant families currently lack a parenting framework for addressing this surge of discrimination. To establish such a framework, it is critical to determine how Asian immigrant parents communicate and support their children about racism, discrimination, and hatred.

Drs. Chen and Chen are collaborating with Dr. Cindy Liu from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dr. Hyeouk “Chris” Hahm from Boston University to work on this community-engaged project titled, “Developing a Conversation Framework for Anti-Discrimination in Asian Immigrant Parents.” The team will administer online surveys to Chinese and Korean immigrant parents and conduct follow-up in-depth interviews, aiming to collect the information needed to establish such a framework.

Our center will continue to devote to supporting Asian communities, parents and their children. We will generate a report of our findings and we expect to develop community-based programming based on our anticipated framework.