RESUMEN
Innovative strategies are needed to generate resources to replicate and sustain proven, community-based health promotion programs. Authors describe how civic-minded university students can conduct such programs while simultaneously gaining skills that make them competitive graduate school applicants.
Asunto(s)
Asiático/psicología , Neoplasias de la Mama/diagnóstico , Neoplasias de la Mama/terapia , Detección Precoz del Cáncer/psicología , Mamografía/psicología , Mamografía/estadística & datos numéricos , Educación del Paciente como Asunto/métodos , Adulto , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Servicios de Salud Comunitaria/métodos , Femenino , Promoción de la Salud/métodos , Humanos , Persona de Mediana Edad , Estudiantes de Medicina , Poblaciones VulnerablesRESUMEN
The Asian Grocery Store-Based Cancer Education Program (the Program) is a proven strategy for promoting early breast cancer detection among Asian American women. The authors sought to test whether the same public health model can become an effective strategy for increasing the Asian community's awareness of the California Smokers' Helpline (the Helpline) and thereby, potentially decreasing this community's use of tobacco products. The new module, mainly staffed by four well-trained, volunteer undergraduates, explained the risks of first- and second-hand tobacco exposure and how to access the Helpline's services. A brochure, provided in English, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese (the Helpline's available Asian languages), was used to guide the bicultural, bilingual students' tobacco-related discussions with shoppers. The students' repeated presence at the nine partnering Asian grocery stores served as reminders of the Helpline's availability. In its first year of operation, the student trainers reached 1,052 men and 1,419 women with tobacco cessation messages. Equally important, the participating grocery stores' managers did not object to students telling their customers to quit using the tobacco products sold in their stores. The results suggest that the Program's tobacco cessation module is a viable, community-specific, public health strategy. It is also a strategy with the potential for applications to reduce other health threats.