Making Invisible Populations Seen Through Data
How the pandemic and personal experience sheds light on Hmong Americans
"California is home to the largest Hmong population in the country. But if you look in health care research and policy, they’re invisible.
Members of an ethnic group from mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand have never had a country of their own. And their voice in health care research has been silent … until now.
“My dissertation initially set out to understand how we diversify the nursing workforce, especially when the population of ethnic minorities is growing,” explained Kao Kang Kue “Kaykay” Vang, a doctoral candidate at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. “But I kept coming back to my roots of being unrecognized ethnic minority. There is no representation of Hmong Americans in the health care workforce.”
Then the pandemic hit. As a quality nurse consultant for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, she watched the “scary and surreal” reality of whether or not there would be enough intensive care unit beds and ventilators across the 21 centers she oversees."