 Background
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Asian Americans represent a wide variety of languages, dialects, and cultures as different from one another as from non-Asian groups. Asian Americans have historically been overlooked due to the "myth of the model minority": the erroneous notion that Asian Americans are passive, compliant, and without problems or needs. The effects of this myth have been the failure to take seriously the very real concerns of this population.
More than a million Asian Americans live at or below the federal poverty level.
Asian-American women have the highest life expectancy of any other group. Only 48.5 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander women 50 years and older in the U.S. have had a mammogram or clinical breast exam within the last two years, the lowest rate of screening among all racial/ethnic groups.
Cancer is the number 1 cause of death among Asian Americans. Factors contributing to poor health outcomes for Asian Americans include language and cultural barriers, stigma associated with certain conditions, and lack of health insurance. |
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Our Organization
The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project's activities are designed to reach out to this underserved priority group in the Dallas and North Texas counties. Our focus is to minimize the barriers that keep Asian women from fully participating in early detection of breast cancer. To achieve our goal, we concentrate on a four-step process of awareness, education, screening, and referral. |
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- Creating breast health awareness. The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project promotes breast health awareness through partnerships with Asian organizations in the community. Many churches, community centers, temples, and other Asian organizations host breast health seminars and refer women for screening mammograms. Presence at community fairs, whether health- related or cultural, serves to further promote our outreach and name recognition in the Asian community,
- Delivering educational information and materials.
Language-specific breast health literature and videos are
presented to the public at health fairs and seminars. In
addition, a language-specific speaking physician or nurse conducts the breast health seminars in order to elevate myths, and cultural barriers that prevent Asian women from participating in preventative breast health activities.
- Providing mammography screening to uninsured Asian women. Screenings are provided by the Richardson Regional Medical Center, Center for Women's Health on "Asian
Friday" to better accommodate the Asian patients. On these designated
Fridays, language speaking volunteers are available to answer questions, help fill out applications, distribute educational materials, and to explain the results process to the patients.
- Initiating appropriate treatment referrals. As we became the trusted breast health resource in the Asian community, women have contacted us for other health related care. Through our contacts in the health care field, we have been able to refer these women to the appropriate resources. Uninsured women in our program who need diagnostic and treatment services for breast cancer are referred
to the Bridge Breast Network, a fellow grant recipient of the Susan G. Komen
for the Cure.
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Results
Since our inception in 2001, the Asian Breast Health Outreach Project has promoted breast health awareness by participating in over 150 health and community events, reaching the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Taiwanese, Indian, Japanese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Burmanese, and Filipinos groups. We have provided mammography to 1,200 women and conducted breast health lectures via physicians or nurses who speak their native language to 2,000 women. Through the generosity and support of the Susan G. Komen
for the Cure, the Asian Breast Health Outreach Project has emerged as a trusted breast health resource for the Asian communities in the Dallas area and has made a difference in the lives of these women. |
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