A systematic review of culturally sensitive cancer prevention resources for ethnic minorities.
BACKGROUND
Cancer prevention educational resources intended for members of ethnically diverse populations should be tailored to the specific cancer knowledge and beliefs of individual ethnic groups. Culturally sensitive printed materials on cancer prevention have been proposed in the literature.


OBJECTIVE
1) To explore definitions of the term cultural sensitivity (CS) and their application to the development and testing of cancer prevention education materials for ethnic minority groups; and 2) to assess the use of instruments or scales used to measure the CS of cancer information resources.


METHODS
A list of articles explicitly on the CS of cancer prevention education materials was assembled by searching the databases of PubMed, CancerLit, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts for articles published between 1994-2004.


RESULTS
Ten studies that met inclusion criteria were included in this review. Most articles included breast cancer resources (90%) and targeted African American populations (70%). Few studies defined the term CS (n=4). Only three studies employed instruments to evaluate the CS of printed cancer information resources, and none of them explicitly listed standard measures of validity or reliability.


CONCLUSIONS
Best practice definitions and guidelines for culturally sensitive cancer prevention education need to be established. Ethnic minority individuals' cancer-related knowledge and beliefs must be incorporated into all printed cancer education efforts.
Hoffman-Goetz
Laurie
L
Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. lhgoetz@uwaterloo.ca
Friedman
Daniela B
DB
D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005006:Ethnicity; D006293:Health Promotion; D006295:Health Resources; D006801:Humans; D008913:Minority Groups; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology