About the Chinese Health Information Center
The Chinese Health Information Center (CHIC) serves as the focal point for Jefferson's ongoing initiative to provide health education, outreach and case management to the Chinese population in Philadelphia and surrounding areas. A team of bilingual and trilingual clinicians, social workers and administrators staffs the Center. The staff makes referrals and appointments, provides interpretation, assists with social service needs, registers clients for childbirth classes and more.
The CHIC opened its doors to the public in 1998 with a mission to improve healthcare access and services for the Philadelphia Chinese community. Our Center logo is a Chinese knot with four Chinese characters – Fu (fortune), An (safety), Kang (health), Ning (peace) – which encapsulate the mission of our Center to improve the health of the Chinese community. The Chinese knot signifies the interconnectedness between people, institutions, communities, cities, states, countries and heaven and earth in achieving harmony and blessed life.
Asians compose the largest and fastest growing segment of the immigrant population in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area. The 2000 Census identified more than 150,000 Asians residing in Philadelphia and its nearby suburbs. Many of the new arrivals from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the various Southeast Asian countries are poor and came from rural areas. Language and cultural characteristics compound the barriers to health care usually faced by poor urban populations. Serious health problems such as osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, Hepatitis B and cancer go undiagnosed until they have progressed to costly incapacitating illness or death.