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Research on Asian Americans’ health behavior has often cited socioeconomic status, race, language, cultural beliefs, acculturation, etc. as barriers to seeking health care services. Less is known about Southeast Asians refugees’ help-seeking process. In this exploratory study, we examine the illness experiences of Southeast Asian refugees with a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, and consider the factors that contribute to their understanding and management of diabetes.

We used Pescosolido’s network episode model to frame our understanding of the ways in which Southeast Asians maneuver through their social support networks, face barriers in accessing health care services, and manage their diabetes. We interviewed a convenience sample of 16 adults. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and coded. Analysis was guided by the grounded theory approach.

Our findings revealed that Southeast Asians’ definition, acceptance, and management of their diabetes was largely influenced by various factors including: trauma and PTSD from their refugee experience, challenges of acculturation, illness experience, mental health, and access and barriers to health care services. The network episode model provides a blueprint for understanding the social and cultural challenges that Southeast Asian refugees face with regards to their diabetes.

Research limitations include the small and convenience sample used for the study, which does not contribute to generalizability. However, our findings contribute to the limited but growing studies on Southeast Asian refugees in the United States, and emphasize the need for health care providers to consider the illness experience, health beliefs, and the social context of Southeast Asian refugees with diabetes. Although the adults in this study were not recent immigrants, their immigrant history and experiences influenced their understanding and management of their diabetes.

Few qualitative studies focus on the health of Southeast Asians in the United States (Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese). This study has potential value for clinicians, social workers, and community providers serving ethnic minority populations, specifically Southeast Asians. In this study, older immigrant adults faced generational challenges that impacted their chronic illness (Type 2 diabetes).

With the increasing understanding of stakeholders on sustainability aspects for the business, companies are nowadays paying more attention to environmental and social issues. This study aims to examine the relationship between Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Index and firms’ value. Moreover, this study also examines how the controversy score influences the company’s value. The authors employ a dataset of 1.356 companies from 22 countries in Asia which representing the Asian market from 2014 to 2018. This study shows that ESG index score and controversy score are statistically significant, affecting the firms’ value, measured by Tobin’s Q. From the individual tests, the findings of this study indicate that ESG-environmental, ESG-social, and ESG-governance, individually affect the firms’ value. This study suggests that providing disclosure on ESG aspects is essential, not only to increase company value but also to show the company resilience and sustainability. On the other hand, ESG controversy score surprisingly indicates a positive relationship with the company value. The result implies that controversies provide a positive signal to the investor because controversies could provide a signal to the public of companies’ willingness to have transparency and accountability.

In recent years, we have seen a paradox. No matter how much the government strives to incorporate technology into classrooms as a learning resource for students, both national and international reports prove that this is a difficult aim to achieve purpose. Training both preservice and in-service teachers is vitally important for technology to become part of everyday school life. But to achieve this, we must move away from the techno-centric focus of technology. This chapter analyzes the importance of focusing on implementing technologies in the learning activities that teacher-trainers design to prepare preservice teachers. We describe seven types of activities: assimilative, informative management, applicative, communicative, productive, experiential, and evaluation. All of these technology-based learning activities, organized in learning sequences, potentially help teachers to come to terms with technological knowledge in their pedagogical content area.