Dear friends,
As COVID-19 began moving through our communities, the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA) immediately initiated conversations with multiple levels of government to ensure the needs of older adults and their caregivers from the Asian American and Pacific Islander populations were being addressed. While we are still continuing our conversations, we recognized the importance of providing access to in-language information and disseminating them through multiple resources. Addressing language barriers and lack of access to information are priorities for us.
In direct response to these priorities, we are launching our automated in-language Helpline and website. The Helpline offers information on prevention, symptoms, and planning in 8 different languages. Each language will have a dedicated 1-800 line so that older adults who are limited English-proficient can immediately learn about the COVID-19 without having to navigate through difficult English prompts.
English: 1-800-336-2722
廣東話/Cantonese: 1-800-582-4218
普通话/Mandarin: 1-800-683-7427
한국어/Korean: 1-800-582-4259
日本語/Japanese: 1-800-398-1117
Tagalog/Filipino: 1-800-593-8087
Tiếng Việt/Vietnamese: 1-800-582-4336
Español/Spanish: 1-800-948-3844
We acknowledge that the challenges our country is experiencing are overwhelming and we want you to know our commitment to serving America’s AAPI and diverse older adults remain unwavering. For now, please use and share these resources as we continue to work on delivering solutions.
In service,
President & CEO
National Asian Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA)
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Diverse Elders Coalition.