California Pan Ethnic Health Network

As California becomes increasingly diverse, a multicultural perspective on public policy is more and more critical. The California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) gathers the strength of the state’s new majority to build a united and powerful voice in health advocacy.

Formed in 1992 by the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the California Black Health Network, the California Rural Indian Health Board, and the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, CPEHN is an established leader in multicultural health advocacy. It works to evolve health care from a one-size-fits-all approach to a system that works for people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. CPEHN organizes multicultural efforts to develop and advance public policies that promote equal treatment and universal access to care. It brings together diverse communities and policymakers to share ideas and build effective advocacy efforts to improve the health of California.

CPEHN accomplishments include the following highlights:
* Successfully secured policies and legislation that require health plans to provide interpreters and translated documents — requirements that are some of the strongest and most specific in the country.
* Secured the inclusion of cultural and linguistic information on the California HMO Report Card. Now consumers can know whether a health plan will meet the language needs of their families.
* Organized a multicultural effort that helped defeat a ballot initiative that would have eliminated the state’s collection of race and ethnicity data. Such data is critical in our efforts to eliminate health inequalities, and we continue to work to ensure that this information is collected and utilized.
* When the state threatened to cut vital health services in our communities, CPEHN mobilized our network, contributing to an opposition so strong that we defeated the cuts.
* Established an easy-to-use Multicultural Health Web Portal (at www.cpehn.org) to provide policymakers, researchers, and community organizations with information on demographics, health conditions, access to care, and cultural and linguistic issues by race, ethnicity, and language preference. These data and resources have been used to strengthen advocacy, program, and fundraising efforts.