Asian Breast Health Outreach Project

Project Description

The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project's activities are designed to reach out to a documented underserved priority group of Asian women located in Dallas, TX. The focus is to minimizing the barriers that keep Asian women from fully participating in early detection and preventive breast health. The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project maintains a highly visible, targeted marketing campaign to reach out to this priority group.

Awareness, education, screening and referral will make up a four step organized process to reach the priority group. The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project will use Komen funds to focus on four key areas to promote breast health:

Create breast health awareness
Deliver educational information and materials
Provide mammography screening to uninsured or under-insured Asian women
Initiate appropriate treatment referrals.

Participants, Activities, and Requirements

The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project has established relationships with the three main Asian origins groups in the Dallas & North Texas County region: Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Not only have these relationships led to a steady stream of breast health events in the Dallas and North Texas areas, but they have also positioned the Asian Breast Health Outreach Project as a primary source of contact for Asian breast health. The project is available for Asian women of all origins including Asian Indians and has begun collaborating with the Indian community to make breast health activities more accessible to their community. The project plans to provide breast health education and mammography screenings to 500 Asian women and to provide breast health awareness to over 1,500 participants in the next year. We will accomplish this by addressing language, fear, culture, lack of information, economic and transportation barriers which may have been factors in this priority group being under-served by other organizations.

The project will focus professional staff, marketing materials, educational delivery, mammography screening and follow-up referral services directly to the Asian populations. We will measure the effectiveness of all these services by carefully setting specific targets and measuring results on a quarterly basis. The project will disseminate literature and video education in the appropriate native language and will offer a quarterly lecture series by local physicians/registered nurses also in native language. Recruitment for mammogram screening for Asian women over the age of 40 years of age will be approached through several aggressive methods. Church gatherings and other religious organizations, women's clubs, community centers, places of business, doctor referrals, and family contacts will be used to encourage sign-up for mammogram appointments. Transportation to the Center for Women's Health at the Richardson Regional Medical Center will be provided based upon need.

Clients will be referred to this project through continued work with established contacts such as: Chinese Christian Herald Crusades, Asian Advisory Council of the American Cancer Society, Chinese Community Center, India Association of North Texas, Vietnamese Community Center, MOSAIC family services, International Buddhist Progressive Society, East Dallas Police Storefront, and the Asian chambers of commerce. In addition to these referrals, applications for our screening mammograms can be obtained through the project's participation in Asian health fairs. Applications are then filtered and screened by personnel from the Asian Breast Health Outreach Project to determine if the clients are eligible for the free screening mammogram.

Mammograms will be free of charge for uninsured or under-insured women. Education and referral services will be coordinated with other community programs and services. We will coordinate services with other programs (e.g. Susan G. Komen programs, American Cancer Society, Social Security Administration, Asian community centers and the Bridge Breast Network) to maximize contact with the priority group.

As part of the grant funded by The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Dallas and North Texas Affiliates, and our commitment to serve the community, Richardson Regional Medical Center, Center for Women's Health elects to provide financial assistance to individuals who are financially indigent or medically indigent and satisfy certain requirements. Clients must meet the following requirements in order to be accepted into our program. Once accepted into the program, clients receive screening mammograms free of charge. Should the need for additional imaging and/or sonograms arise, these too shall be covered by the grant and Richardson Regional Medical Center.

Comparable Programs

The Asian Breast Health Outreach Project stands alone as a unique project serving the Asian population in Dallas, Collin, and Denton Counties. No other program offers breast health lectures to the Asian community delivered in their native languages via physicians and nurses who speak the language, as does our program. Literature disseminated during lectures and at health fairs is also in their native language with the assistance of language speaking volunteers. Our Project alone has the means to contact patients regarding the entire mammogram screening process in their native language. This includes scheduling the appointment, the mammogram screening, and any follow-up action required.

The Project is dedicated to serving the Asian community in our area. Through a combination of creativity and flexibility, we continue to strive to better serve their breast health needs. For example the Project offers entire days devoted to mammogram screenings for the Asian community on 2nd Friday of each month. These "Asian Day" Fridays are developed to ensure patients are in a comfortable environment with "familiar faces" around (Asian employees, translators, and Technician). These specific screening days have been well received by the Asian community with patients asking for appointments for extended family members and friends.