Meeting with Diana...

September 28, 2009

I had the chance to meet with Diana again. We were supposed to meet up with the GCN interns, but they couldn't make it. =(

So Diana ended up going over some more research designs that might help my survey. She wants me to learn a lot of the basics to research. That's good because I can get into more of the complex things if I get into really putting in a research project. (hmmm?)

Diana told me a lot about a cohort design research method. This design takes up a lot of time and money. That's because you choose a group of people you would follow for a period of time. In between, conductors will have to take measurements on their group to see how they develop overtime. This design requires enough staff to keep track of participants and their whereabouts. That's out of my league (haha) because I don't have the staff, money, and time to do it.

There was more discussion on surveys Diana has conducted in the past and I learned more about the different outcomes you can get from participants. The thing that you mainly have to depend on in surveys are the answers people give you. For example, you're depending on your participant to tell the truth on the survey because if they lie, what's the point of getting that data? The Hawthorne Effect also falls into this category where participants tell you what you want to know because they know that they're being studied. That's BAD! (haha) That's why researchers come into trying to study HOW to best conduct a survey. I didn't even know the way you asked a questions really mattered, I thought it mattered as long as you asked and the participant understood the point.

Well that's what Diana basically went over with me today. I got a good outline of different researching designs and how to conduct the best one fit more my research. =)

2nd Annual PI Festival [Orange County]

My Ta'ahines O Moana

September 19, 2009

Well I went to this Polynesian festival in Orange County. I was originally going because my girls, Ta'ahines O Moana, were going.

Alisi suggested that us girls should help sell raffle tickets that supported the PI Scholarship Fund. We got right to work and my group (Fita & Melanie) had a competition with the other girls (Uini, Suli & Manuma'a). Of course my group won! (haha) In all, we sold more than 100 raffle tickets and it felt good we did something for a good cause.

Afterwards, I got the chance to speak to 'Ono Vaifale, one of the other interns. I was surprised he was already conducting his survey! I was only halfway with mines! (haha) He was at the festival working on his internship by getting people to take his survey on health insurance. I was happy to talk to him so I can get his perspective on ideas of this research internship. It was also good learning about what he was doing and how he did it, like the survey and how he set it up. He also offered help on mines and gave me handouts that might be helpful. Thanks 'Ono! I also found out that he wasn't alone on the project. He had Lena as a partner so they can work as a team throughout this internship. That surprised me because I didn't have a partner. Anyways, I'm thankful for who I have as partners! Vanessa had my back! Brian and Diana too! (haha) They walked me through this internship and made things a lot more easier!

Well that was it for Saturday! I was happy to have the opportunity to support the PI Scholarship Fund and get feedback from 'Ono.

My last day :(

I didn't want this day to come! My last day at TCSC. I fell in love (haha) with working there and doing work on this internship! I enjoy working with Vanessa and Brian and knowing I have something to work on all the time! Now my days are going to be a lot shorter! (haha) =[

Working today was exciting though. I met with the interns from GCN like Chas, Jocelyn, and Mona. They came with Joe so it was good getting to work with all of them for one day.

Our goal today was to learn how to enter data from surveys onto Excel. I had a good idea of what we were doing thanks to 'Ono. He explained to me how survey questions were substituted as variables on the survey entry form. Next to the variables were numbers that substituted the answers for the questions. Those variables and numbers stood for the data people put on the surveys. That made the data more easy to process because it was short and simple.

Anyways, Diana had each of us get on a computer and enter data from a survey she has already conducted. The survey was conducted to find out how much knowledge people have about breast cancer, so it was more like a test than a survey. We each entered the data for about 6 surveys.

Brian bought us pizza! Thanks to Brian and Vanessa! I blessed the food! (haha) It was cool, but I'm usually not used to praying in English. Anyways, Diana was busy trying to put our data together, so we ended up rescheduling another time to meet and finish what we started. So far, so good. We learned how to enter data from surveys and I learned how to set it up on Excel with a date and location of where the survey was conducted.

2nd day of REACH CONFERENCE

Now I was really focused! (haha) The sophisticated conversations that I tuned out on the day before were really coming to my attention now. (haha)

We started out the day with a "Sustainability Panel: What do we need to do to set the health agenda for 2010 and Beyond?". Panelists featured Gertrude Carter, Tyan Dominguez, Wayne Giles, Herbert Hatanaka, Sylvia Ivie and Lillian Lew.

They discussed what their plans were for building a better health care system. The floor was open for the audience to ask questions.

Well after a while, I had the guts to stand up and ask my own question in front of everyone. I introduced myself and asked "How do you think I can spread these health disparities or ideas with youth or people like me?"

I can see it in everyone's expression that they were surprised a youngin like me stood up, but I felt good to get involved with this conversation. Dr.Giles suggested that he would get the youth involved with a photo voice project where youth like myself can take pictures (with a disposable camera) of health disparities in the community. He said after the pictures were developed, the youth can take this to the city board to expose these issues. He said that if we do that, it shows what we think is going wrong and what they need to work on.

Lunch was great! I engaged in a conversation with Alisi and Genesis. It was interesting really being mixed in with these grown up conversations. (haha)

Afterwards, we broke out to sessions again where people presented in different rooms. I chose to listen to Genesis and Dorothy in their presentation of the Samoan National Nurses Association. They presented what they do to help the Samoan communities through personal navigation. It was fun because Dorothy added her own sense of humor to the presentation.

Second session came around and I went to Ruban and Michael's presentation on their program "We're Fed Up." It's a youth program on obesity. They stated that the youth totally runs the program. I was interested in this presentation because of how it really involves the youth and only operates from what the youth wants.

Today I was blessed with the best! (haha) I was actually networking! I spoke to Taunuu Ve'e-Remmers from the bay area. I really loved talking to her because she understood how it is for young Polynesian youth coming up. I told her I don't know what I'm going to do in college and she comforted me in saying she'll guide me through the steps of finding what I'm really passionate about. (SUPER EXCITING). I got the chance to talk to many people who openly welcomed me and offered me help with college applications and much more. Many opportunities opened up for me and now I see the benefits of going to conferences like this. =).

CA REACH US Conference 2009

YES! I was excused from school for TWO days to attend this conference! (haha) I woke up SUPER EARLY this morning being really excited for today's event! =)

On the drive to Long Beach in the Metro (the ride was a cool experience), Vanessa informed me about the Conference. She explained that it's a conference where US grantees and community partners come together and confront the health related issues in ethnic communities and come up with procedures that will make it better.

Well we got to the Hyatt hotel and we settled into the dining room for the program to start. In between all of that I met Falelima who was supposed to be my intern partner for this program, but things did not go the way we planned. It was great meeting her though. I found out that she also works with Diana Tisnado at UCLA and helps a lot with Diana's own research. That was cool because she's actually getting hands on a real research project. SHOUT OUT TO LIMA! (haha)

What really woke me up in the morning session (haha) was the Chamorro dancing. (Not that I was really sleepin. Haha.) I never seen a Chamorro dance before and it was exciting getting to see their cultural dance. The girls were BOMB! I loved it when they sang during their dance because it made their dance very original and authentic. Joey and Jay played in the band and I loved how they played also! Joey! You sang beautifully! =).

Afterwards, we had speakers like Don Knabe (LA County Supervisor), Wayne Giles (Director of Division of Adult & Community Health) and Camara Jones (Research Director on Social Determinants of Health and Equity in the same division as Mr.Giles).

My favorite speech was Dr.Jones speech about the red and pink rose. It's a LONG story, but the main point of the story was that the red rose flourished better than the pink rose because it had a better source of soil. Well the moral (to my understanding) was that people can live a better life if they have better resources. It doesn't mean that any one is better than anyone else, it's just because they had better resources and grew off of that. That's what this conference is partially about, creating better health care access to people so they can have better resources and maybe have better health conditions.

We had lunch and BOY was that food something. (haha) I should've known it was going to be healthy. (haha) Obviously! I'm in a health program! (haha) All in all, it was good food and even better because it was healthy.

The sessions were GREAT! I learned a lot about hepatitis and how you can be infected with HIV, but not know that you are co-infected with hepatitis. It's really serious when the presenters were breaking it down and giving all the info of people who tested and knew little about it. That keeps me curious about seeing how aware my people are of Hepatitis B and C.

My highlight of today's conference was the impacts of racism on health. I never knew racism had anything to do with health. I understood it when Dr.Jones brought up "Reactions to Race" because people judge you on the way you look. I go through that EVERYDAY. People underestimate me or judge me from what I wear or how I look like. (That doesn't phase me though. haha)

I spent time with the other Pipeline Interns and it was a great experience. I got to know more about them and what they were doing within their research. Lena and 'Ono told me about their research on health access/health insurance. I met the scholarship recipients George Mataele and Anna Tapu. They were cool and very open about what they were pursuing in college.

I look up to all these people, literally too (haha). That's because they are all older and are doing big things in education to show that our people are coming up in society. =).

Well after P.F. Chang's I was the happiest girl alive. (haha) I had the honor to meet all these people and have dinner with them. With all this, I truly feel blessed. =)

Down to Business...

Vanessa, Brian, and I linked up with Diana today to go over everything we're doing.
We talked a WHOLE lot about the IRB review and how we need the Cal State University Fullerton Institutional Review Board (CSUF IRB) approval to get my project really going.
I know...reallyyyy long huh!? (haha)

In simple terms it's a board committee that is appointed by a President to review and protect human participants rights in researching. So they back up the participants and make sure researchers don't necessarily put them "on blast".

I showed Diana the San Mateo survey and she gave me her feedback on it. These points are some of her feedback on my questions that I noted down: =)

• Is the question relevant to your topic?
• Is the question explained clearly?
• Is it understandable?
• Will the participant understand/interpret the questions the way you do?
• Is the survey too long or too short?
• Make questions specific to get a specific answer.
• Give question a time frame (ex. in the last year, month, week, etc.)
• Make up my own questions and compare with real survey questions

I learned more about how I should conduct my survey questions. WOOH. I got a lot of homework to do for this. (AHHH!!! haha) But I can handle it. I have a task to make up my own survey questions and compare them with other survey questions...like in the last bullet point. I GOT THIS! (hehe)

Gardena Office...

From Garden Grove to Gardena...
September 2nd.

I started school today and I had to work at a place that was most convenient for a high school student getting out at 3 pm.

I met up with Vanessa in the office and she gave me a quick tour of the Tongan Center. It was really COOL because it gave me the feel of how it is to work in an office. Then I reviewed with Vanessa the Pipeline material and Diana's handouts. Afterwards, Vanessa did overviews of 3 youth surveys with me. I skimmed through Tongan youth survey and made a lot of comments. It was a lot of questions and very straight forward.

We called Alisi to touch base with everything going on. We felt like we had the green light to get things started as in starting my blog site.

Now aren't I a happy camper to have this blog site! (haha) Vanessa helped me create this blog site with my new gmail account. Now everyday, I have to record a log to keep track of everything I did. It's a good reminder of what I did. If days go by, I will TOTALLY forget what I did. =). It's normal! (haha)

Overlookin' Tonga Survey...

BiG DiSTRACTiON from research work! (haha)

Today I did the usual.

• look over youth surveys
  
• review guidelines of conducting a survey
• my favorite part- updating my blog

I looked over the youth survey taken in Tonga in 2000. I learned that a great percentage of girls and boys in Tonga are overweight or obese. The summary of the Tonga survey gave me great ideas to reflect on when I'm conducting questions for my own survey. I came up with 2 whole pages! YESSSS. Well I just finished going over the guidelines of making a survey and it gets clearer each time I go over it. Probably tomorrow, I'll start on something new.

First day. ORiENTATiON.

The day of the orientation...hmmm...what were they going to expect of me?

I knew that this program wasn't going to be easy, but I had some comfort in getting assistance in what I was going to do.

I remember as I walked into the room full of the interns and preceptors at CSULB, I thought I was crazy for wanting to join the program. The room was FULL of adults! (haha) Not in a bad way though. =D. That's because I'm the youngest one taking this internship. It felt awkward learning something new with adults, but I got comfortable with everyone after getting to know more about them.

Anyways, later on in the day after lunch, everyone separated into groups to go to mini workshops. That's when I learned more about this internship and what I would might be interested in researching. I found out that the top 4 health issues in our PI communities are diabetes, cancer, obesity and heart disease. My group and I tried coming up with ideas in which we think is causing those issues and how we may solve it. Out of the whole orientation, that was my highlight of the day. I was glad to be exposed to more things I didn't know of because it motivated me to want to do something about it. Things we don't know may hurt us...

About ME...

Sister Lupe, Me & Cousin Kala @ Youth Day August 2009

Malo e tau lava!
I'm one of the 9 interns taking the PI Health Careers Pipeline Summer Internship Program and I feel LUCKY! =) Now I see this program as a great experience to get the feel of how it is to work in the health field. I originally wanted to take it because I wanted to try something new and I knew it would be a thumbs up on my college application.
Opportunities like this don't come around often...probably never, epecially where I come from. Who do you know is in high school and has the chance to study health with professionals? Not to mention, being Polynesian. That's specifically why I feel lucky. =D. Thanks Pola!


Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Caroline Sina'ilauli'i Fifita. I'm 17 years old and I go to Hawthorne High School in Hawthorne. I'm Tongan and I live in the LA county area in Hawthorne.

Part of the reason why I chose to study local youth health is because I been exposed to everything you can connect to that. It also makes my job easier. (haha) The community I live in has many youth health issues and being a youth myself can give me the inside look on how things may operate.

This Pipeline internship makes me want to study health when I get into college. I'm a senior in high school this year so I have to make my choice soon. I always keep in mind that someone working in the health field will NEVER go jobless because there is always a high demand of health instructors, so motivation has a good part of me.

It was a Start.

I am officially the first intern to start the P.I. Health Career Pipeline Program for 2009. I was nervous and scared because I didn't know much about what I was getting into. Don't worry, my feelings changed.

My first day into the internship was overwhelming, but exciting. My preceptor, Diana Tisnado, taught me a lot about the basic elements of researching.

I know about Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) and Quasi-Experimental Design which are research designs. Who ever thought about such sophisticated methods of research? (haha)

RCT is simply picking a focus group and randomly separating them into two groups. Researchers will experiment on one group and keep the other group the same as they were (called the controlled group). After a period of time, you can give a survey to both groups and find how their progress was in being in those groups.

QED is another one where you survey before and after the groups are formed. Repeated measures afterwards might be done to indicate how their progress is. Some QED's won't have a controlled group and some will, depending.

Enough with the lecture. Clearly, my understanding of researching has stretched a lot more since I started this internship.
I had lunch with Diana, Alisi and their friend. It was different from my usual luncheons which is full of the newest gossip around town. I liked it because I learned something different from each of these women. They argued (in a good way) about things they believed were right and how they would change an issue. Well from what I was paying attention to. (haha) I also ate the best Vietnamese Pho soup I have ever tasted. (Not relevant, but good to know) =)

Brian Hui and Diana went over a lot of guidelines with me. They let me know that my options were open to anything in the health field. They introduced the idea of making surveys to get the data I will need for this report. I took interest in looking into Local Youth Health Issues because I'm a youth myself and I know a lot of people who can help me with this. =) I believe it's also an issue that can affect the future because our youth is the future.

Anyways, Diana gave me guidelines on how to conduct a survey. It looks difficult, but possible. This internship came off on a great start.