Student Health Service will offer workshops on nutrition, HIV/AIDS and women's health this month specifically for Asian-American students.
In addition to the general workshops normally offered, SHS periodically targets certain communities of students on campus, including African Americans and Asian Americans, according to Health Educator Katie Huang.
Asian-American students are roughly 36 percent of the multicultural campus of SF State, Huang said.
The first workshop set for April 17 will feature one or two speakers from the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance Community HIV Project (GCHP). "The workshop will look at how HIV/AIDS impacts the Asian-American community," Health Educator Albert Angelo said.
"We always look at it as a gay white disease. GCHP will bring in HIV-positive Asian Americans that dispel those myths," Angelo said. The nutrition workshop will be April 18 and will focus on the high sodium content of common foods that Asian-American students may be eating such as preserved or stir-fried foods and soy sauce. SF State nutritionist Teresa Leu said Asians need to keep the values of their culture, such as keeping the "Asian taste," but they need to be aware of the risks of sodium.
Dr. Marilyn Wong, director of preventive medicine, will lead the workshop on Asian women's health issues, focussing on shared problems of all women and also those issues that predominately affect Asian-American women, such as hepatitis B and osteoporosis. Wong and Huang both said there are actually two groups of Asians, recent immigrants which are less likely to seek health care and Asian Americans that are more mainstream.
Student Karina Bustos went to a few of the workshops last semester that focused on certain ethnic groups.
"The presentations are more interesting when they pertain to certain groups of people," Bustos said. "It makes more sense."