Developing theoretically based and culturally appropriate interventions to promote hepatitis B testing in 4 Asian American populations, 2006-2011.
BACKGROUND
Hepatitis B infection is 5 to 12 times more common among Asian Americans than in the general US population and is the leading cause of liver disease and liver cancer among Asians. The purpose of this article is to describe the step-by-step approach that we followed in community-based participatory research projects in 4 Asian American groups, conducted from 2006 through 2011 in California and Washington state to develop theoretically based and culturally appropriate interventions to promote hepatitis B testing. We provide examples to illustrate how intervention messages addressing identical theoretical constructs of the Health Behavior Framework were modified to be culturally appropriate for each community.


METHODS
Intervention approaches included mass media in the Vietnamese community, small-group educational sessions at churches in the Korean community, and home visits by lay health workers in the Hmong and Cambodian communities.


RESULTS
Use of the Health Behavior Framework allowed a systematic approach to intervention development across populations, resulting in 4 different culturally appropriate interventions that addressed the same set of theoretical constructs.


CONCLUSIONS
The development of theory-based health promotion interventions for different populations will advance our understanding of which constructs are critical to modify specific health behaviors.
University of California, Los Angeles, 650 Charles Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-6900. E-mail: amaxwell@ucla.edu.
Annette E
AE
Maxwell
University of California, Los Angeles, California.
Roshan
R
Bastani
University of California, Los Angeles, California.
Beth A
BA
Glenn
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington.
Victoria M
VM
Taylor
University of California, San Francisco, California.
Tung T
TT
Nguyen
University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California.
Susan L
SL
Stewart
University of California, San Francisco, California.
Nancy J
NJ
Burke
University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California.
Moon S
MS
Chen
D001213:Asian; D003469:Culture; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D015438:Health Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D012944:Social Support; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology