Southeast Asian Women's Health Project

Overview

Cancer is the leading cause of death for Southeast Asian refugee and immigrant (R/I) women; yet they have unacceptably low screening rates. Drawing on successful tailored navigation interventions, the purpose of this study is to compare a culturally congruent, tailored navigation intervention delivered by bilingual and bicultural Community Health Advisors (CHAs) to increase age-appropriate breast and cervical cancer screening completion among intergenerational Southeast Asian R/I women (mother-daughter dyads) with information and reminder only. We will examine the underlying factors that associate with the intervention that influence cancer screening completion. We will also explore the influence of intergenerational exchange of breast and cervical cancer screening information between mothers and daughters. This multi-faceted intervention, combining culturally tailored messages and navigation via CHAs, has high potential for scalability across settings and diseases for hard-to-reach populations. In addition, this study focuses on breast and cervical cancer screening jointly potentially increasing the public health impact.

Cancer is the leading cause of death for Southeast Asian refugee and immigrant women. Cambodian, Lao, and Vietnamese (hereafter referred to as SEAR/I) women have disproportionately high incidence rates of breast and cervical cancers. Breast cancer incidence increased significantly for all Asians from 1988 to 2013, but the largest increase was in SEAR/I women (APC=2.5, 95% CI 0.8, 4.2). Over the past two decades, SEAR/I women experienced significant increases in breast cancer incidence across age groups compared to other Asian and White women. Lao and Cambodian women are 2.5 times and Vietnamese women are 40% more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than are White women. Despite evidence that regular screening through mammography and Pap testing reduces breast and cervical cancer mortality, SEAR/I women continue to have strikingly low rates of screening (75.4% for Pap tests and 64.1% for mammography), well below the Healthy People 2020 target of 93% and 81.1%, respectively. Drawing on successful tailored navigation interventions, the purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of a culturally-relevant, tailored navigation intervention delivered through bilingual and bicultural Community Health Advisors (CHAs) for intergenerational SEAR/I women (mother-daughter dyads). Ethnically matched CHAs will use the tested Tailored Intervention Messaging System (TIMS©) to educate and navigate participants from the community to health clinic to complete mammography and/or Pap testing. Our specific aims are to: AIM 1: Test the efficacy of tailored navigation intervention delivered by SEA community health advisors (CHA+TN) to increase age-appropriate breast and cervical cancer screening completion compared to an information and reminder only control among intergenerational SEAR/I dyads. H1: The intervention group (CHA+TN) will have significantly higher age-appropriate breast and cervical cancer screening rates compared with the control group (information + reminder only). AIM 2: Examine the underlying mechanisms (both mediating and moderating factors) associated with the intervention (CHA+TN) that influence breast and cervical cancer screening completion. Exploratory AIM 3: Explore in greater detail the influence of intergenerational exchange of information between mothers and daughters related to breast and cervical cancer screening.