I started the Asian Development Center because the families I most wanted to help were the ones our health system was reaching last.
For years, I have worked in public-health research — in laboratories studying infectious disease, in datasets tracking antimicrobial resistance, in classrooms teaching students about epidemiology. The science we produce is genuinely good. It saves lives. But I kept noticing something that didn't sit right with me.
The communities most affected by the things we study — immigrant families, refugees, neighbors who work two jobs and speak English as a second language — were almost always the last to hear about the science meant to protect them. The information existed. The studies were published. The recommendations were clear. But somewhere between the laboratory and the kitchen table, the bridge wasn't being built.
ADC is my answer to that.
What we're building
We are a Utah nonprofit, but our mission is simple enough to fit on a single line: advance the health of immigrant and underserved families through education, outreach, and community-engaged research.
In practice that looks like three things, all happening at once:
We meet people where they are. Free health screenings at community events, places of worship, and partner clinics. Hands-on CPR and first-aid classes — free for community members, subsidized for the immigrant-serving organizations that already do this work without enough support. Health education workshops translated and culturally adapted, not just linguistically translated.
We educate, in the real sense of the word. Not flyers and one-page handouts. Real workshops, in real languages, where someone can ask the question they have actually been afraid to ask their doctor. How does insurance work. What does my prescription actually do. When is my child's cough something to worry about. When is it not.
We do research that gives back. Most public-health research is done about communities, not with them. We are flipping that. Our research partnerships with Utah universities and clinics are designed to identify the gaps our neighbors are actually living inside — language access, environmental exposures, infectious-disease surveillance — and to publish findings that come back to those communities in plain language, in time to matter.
The planet's health and our health are the same health. The lab's findings and the kitchen-table's questions belong in the same conversation.
Why now
Utah is changing. The communities ADC serves — Asian American, immigrant, and refugee families across the Wasatch Front — are growing every year. The health system has not kept pace. Language-access gaps are real. Trust gaps are real. Cost barriers are real. And in the meantime, preventable illness — the kind we know how to prevent — keeps showing up in our emergency rooms instead of in our clinics.
The people who can fix this are the people already living in those communities. The clinicians who speak the languages. The interpreters who already do uncompensated work for their neighbors. The students who want to give back. The grandmothers who already organize their blocks. ADC is built to give all of them an institution to plug into — one that is theirs, that takes their input seriously, and that is willing to do the slow work of building trust before asking for anything.
What we are asking
We are a brand-new organization. We are federally recognized as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity, and our first-year goals are concrete: 500+ free health screenings, 200+ community members CPR-certified, 12+ workshops in multiple languages, and 3+ active research partnerships. Every dollar we raise moves into programs within the quarter — there is no "someday" fund.
If you are a clinician, a student, an interpreter, a faith-community leader, a small-business owner, a researcher, or simply a neighbor who wants to show up — there is a way for you to plug in. If you have five dollars, that is a screening for a family. If you have five hours, that is a CPR class for a dozen people. If you have a network, an idea, a kitchen big enough to host a listening session — please reach out.
Good science belongs to everyone. So does good health. ADC is what I believe the small, persistent work of making that true looks like. I hope you will join us.