Colorectal Cancer Screening in Chinese Americans Project

The Colorectal Cancer Screening in Chinese Americans Project is a clinic-based educational program that promotes fecal occult blood test screening for colorectal cancer among Chinese Americans. Colorectal cancer ranks among the top three most common cancers in both men and women from several Asian ethnic groups, but foreign-born Asian Americans have low screening participation rates. Chinese Americans over age 50 are recruited from the International Community Health Services clinic. The program provides education through a bicultural Chinese American health educator who speaks English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. The program includes a motivational video on colorectal screening, produced in Cantonese and dubbed in Mandarin in addition to bilingual motivational and informational pamphlets. Participants in the program receive a fecal occult blood test kit with instructions in Chinese and English.

The goal of this project was to promote colorectal cancer screening among Chinese Americans.

The project was evaluated using a randomized controlled trial that compared the educational group with a usual care group. Among the intervention patients, 69.5% had received screening at the 6-month follow-up, compared to 27.6% of control patients, with an intervention effect size of 42 percentage points (odds ration = 5.98; 95% CI = 3.25, 10.75).