— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate
About 10% of Asian-Americans have chronic hepatitis
B, but few have been screened or treated for the infection that can
lead to liver cancer. Most health education and outreach programs have
failed to reach this population due to cultural, language and economic
barriers.
A recent liver cancer education
program in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area, spear-headed by Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers, found that a
culturally-adept program that employed native language speakers, a
role-playing slide presentation, and a graphic novel increased
hepatitis B screening markedly.
The researchers worked with
local Vietnamese-, Chinese- and Korean-American community groups to
develop education materials that would be suitable to Asian-Americans.
The program workers fanned out to recruit potentially at-risk
Asian-Americans from Korean Christian churches, Buddhist temples, nail
salons, and Chinese language schools.
About half of those recruited
(436) were assigned to a control group that received an English
language brochure about hepatitis B. The other half (441) participated
in a 30-minute education program about hepatitis B and liver cancer in
their own language from Asian-American health educators. They watched a
role-playing slide presentation that featured Asian-Americans asking
doctors about hepatitis B and lab tests, and were given a photo novel
about hepatitis B and liver cancer that featured Asian-Americans.
Six months later, both groups
were interviewed by phone to see if they had been screened for
hepatitis B as a result of the two interventions.
About 34% of the
culturally-customized program participants had been screened for
hepatitis B. In contrast, only 10% of the control group had been
screened.
“In conclusion, this culturally
integrated intervention program yielded a substantial increase in
screening behavior in under-served, high-risk, Asian minority
populations,” researchers wrote in the U.S. Centers for Disease control
and Prevention’s February issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
“We recommend providing
culturally and linguistically integrated educational programs as one
way to change social norms to increase preventive behavior,” they
added, stressing that their program provides a model for large-scale
community initiatives that promote hepatitis B and liver cancer
prevention among high-risk groups.
Labels: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), education
