SAHRI

South Asian Health Foundation, based in UK, has a publication (I haven't figured out how to access it yet).  But it seems to be a comprehensive review of some of the questions we want to address.  I have contacted them.  Will keep you updated.

Biren

I just attended the 1st South Asian American Health Conference held at North Brunswick, NJ (sponsored by UMDNJ).  It was a great conference for various reasons.  First and foremost, there were great speakers including:
Dr. Arora (Cardiologist), Dr. Raghuwansi (Endocrinologist), Dr. Jay Jayasankar (former AAPI president), Upendra Chivukula (NJ Assemblyman).  There were many things discussed, but I will focus on Coronary disease here in this section. 

Dr. Arora was the featured speaker and he summarized current research/the next steps for cornary disease.

First of all the disease burden:

- there is higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, insulin resistance, central obesity, dyslipidemia (lower HDL, high Lp(a), higher TG).
- higher prevalence of CAD as compared to other ethnicities
- other possible RF - increased thrombotic tendency (increased PAI-1), decreased tPA, low birth weights

He recommends a multi-pronged approach to
- WE NEED MORE DATA
- we need to educate the community of their risk factors (encourage dietary modification, physical activity)
- educate the physicians taking care of these communities
- may be need to make guidelines stringer (or change them based on risk factors that we find).

How can we bring about a change?
- Get the data = one thing was to have some of the large studies in US to include "South Asian" as a category.  Additionally, SAHRI wants to start an epidemiological study. 
- educate the community: there are already many organizations working in the community focused on various subjects (Mental health, domestic violence, cancer screening).  South Asian Public Health Association (SAPHA) is an organization on the web connecting all those interested in public health.  I think that we can work with an organization like that to educate the community.
- educating physicians will require authoritative

How does SAHRI fit into all of this?
- I want SAHRI to be an organization that enables others to do their best by
    - establishing an infrastructure for research (more on this later). 
    - provide guidance (and later on monies) to those who are interested in performing research. 

- I want SAHRI to be a very loose organization.  I want all the researchers and scholars interested in these issues to let us know.  We can work with community organizations, we can provide speakers, guidance (if required).

I will write more on "goals of SAHRI"

Biren 6/9/05