Healthy cambodian families project: Empowring the community

Cambodian Americans face unprecedented challenges in terms of health disparities. Cambodians' experiences with trauma, starvation, and forced labor during the Khmer Rouge regime have had a significant impact on their mental and physical health status. Socio-economic issues facing Cambodian American families present further complications, with many households impacted by low income, limited education and English fluency. A lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate health care prevents many Cambodian Americans from utilizing the existing health care system. The Healthy Cambodian Families (HCF) aims to facilitate community members' confidence in managing their mental and physical health issues, thus to promote their overall well-being. Improving access to care for Cambodian Americans is an essential step to reduce health disparities. However, their health cannot be improved unless Cambodian Americans have their rights to make informed decisions and gain their ownership of their health and management of their health issues. Thus, HCF uses a holistic and integrated approach to improve access to care by addressing three interrelated areas: equity, empowerment, and access. HCF's multidisciplinary staff conduct extensive community outreach to increase the community's awareness of health issues, available services, resources, and information (equity); provide participatory guidance to individuals to increase their confidence in managing their health (empowerment); and provide bilingual services and act as cultural brokers to improve access to care. Currently HCF is in its 4th year; and we started seeing its impacts, including improvement in participants' knowledge and confidence in managing their health issues, and improvement in communication between community members and professionals.