Breast and cervical cancer control among Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian Women: participatory action research strategies for baseline data collection in California.
BACKGROUND
No data exists on the breast and cervical cancer screening practices among Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, and Tongan women. In this article, we describe the efforts required to conduct a baseline survey among these non-English-speaking women using the participatory action research (PAR) approach.


METHODS
We tailored small population sampling techniques to each of the populations in partnership with Community Health Outreach workers.


RESULTS
A total of 1825 surveys were successfully conducted in 8 communities.


CONCLUSIONS
PAR and the culturally based techniques used to conduct the survey proved successful in maintaining scientific rigor, developing true community-researcher partnership, and achieving over 99% participation.
Kagawa-Singer
Marjorie
M
Asian American Studies Department, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Park Tanjasiri
Sora
S
Lee
Susan W
SW
Foo
Mary Anne
MA
Ngoc Nguyen
Tu-Uyen
TU
Tran
Jacqueline H
JH
Valdez
Annalyn
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D003256:Community Participation; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D044468:Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014175:Translating; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control*