Recorded presentation

Roxana Chen, MPH¹, Maxine Chan², and Cheza Garvin, PhD, MPH, MSW¹. (1) Chronic Disease Prevention & Healthy Aging, Public Health - Seattle & King County, 400 Yesler Way, Suite 510, Seattle, WA 98104, (2) International Community Health Services, P.O. Box 3007, Seattle, WA 98114-3007, 206.461.3617 ext. 2247, datsluv@yahoo.com

The Seattle and King County REACH Coalition addresses disparities in diabetes health status among African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asians, and Pacific Islanders through education, self-management, support groups, diabetes registry tracking, patient care coordination, community referrals, media awareness, and community engagement. The work is conducted in a variety of settings, including clinics, our local area agency on aging, community-based organizations, faith communities and public housing buildings. Classes, groups and materials have been developed and implemented in multiple languages, primarily English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Tagalog. Efforts to include Samoan activities are currently underway.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the Seattle and King County REACH 2010 interventions, with special discussion of the complexity of working with multiple cultural groups and languages, including obstacles, lessons learned, community feedback and acceptance.

This paper will provide an overview of the Seattle and King County REACH Coalition’s Community Action Plan; outline our methods used to recruit and retain racially and ethnically diverse participants, including community events to raise diabetes awareness. We will discuss our evaluation results (assessment of knowledge, behaviors, self-efficacy, client satisfaction and change over time), and discuss the challenges of managing multiple languages, customs and belief systems. We will describe barriers/obstacles encountered with survey administration (western concept of survey/test-taking; language; literacy; individual, group, mailed, home surveys) and our efforts at cultural tailoring in data collection; highlight lessons learned from addressing diabetes within culturally diverse populations, and discuss how we have incorporated these lessons into ongoing program offerings. This cultural tailoring is a time-consuming, but worthwhile effort, and the implications for community benefit and sustainability.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the session, the participant should be able to

• Propose culturally-relevant approaches to recruitment and retention of participants
• Identify potential challenges in addressing chronic disease, specifically diabetes, within culturally diverse populations
• Identify potential barriers/obstacles with survey administration among racially and ethnically diverse populations

Keywords: Health Disparities, Minority Health

Related Web page: www.metrokc.gov/health/reach/

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I am employed with the International Community Health Services, one of the contracting REACH agencies.

Recorded presentation