The Chinese Community Internet Stop Smoking Project
Abstracts
Initial Award Abstract |
|
Chinese constitutes the largest Asian/Pacific Islander group (23%) in the current U.S. population according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. One in three Chinese Americans reside in California. California currently has 3.6% (1.3 million) Chinese Americans, with over half of the Chinese American in California being immigrants from China where smoking prevalence is especially high (61%) among men. Recent smoking prevalence ranged from 29% to 34% among Chinese men residing in Chinatown vicinities in major cities. The 2007 California Health Interview estimated every one in 4 Asian smokers is a Chinese American; the smoking prevalence rates among Chinese Americans in California are 16% and 2.9% for men and women, respectively. Although the free state-wide California Smokers’ Helpline is available in the Chinese language, a small proportion of Chinese current smokers have utilized the service. Recognizing: 1) a majority of Chinese Americans are first generation immigrants and new male immigrants from China reported significantly higher rates of current smoking; 2) empirical data on effective smoking cessation strategies targeting Chinese American smokers, especially new immigrants, are scarce; and 3) the potential of Internet being the most accessible venue to deliver health interventions for a growing Internet using portion of the Chinese population; the Chinese Community Health Resource Center of San Francisco (CCHRC) and the University of California, San Francisco Internet World Health Research Center (UCSF-IWHRC) are joining forces to take the first initiative to establish an evidence-based Internet stop smoking intervention targeting Chinese immigrants in California. CCHRC has 20 years of established expertise in culturally-specific preventive health education, and has ongoing relationships with key players in the Chinese health care community. The bilingual CCHRC website (www.cchrchealth.org) has received a Multi-Cultural Healthcare Award from the National Committee for Quality Assurance in 2006 with the recognition of innovations in providing web-based health information and receives close to two million hits annually from Internet users to obtain health information in Chinese. The UCSF-IWHRC (www.health.ucsf.edu) was founded by the Latino Mental Health Research Program at San Francisco General Hospital in 2004. Its primary mission is to address major public health problems worldwide through developing evidence-based and low-cost interventions. With support from TRDRP and other sources, UCSF-IWHRC has established an evidence-based Internet smoking cessation program (www.stopsmoking.ucsf.edu) through three large studies with more 47,000 English- and Spanish-speaking participants worldwide. The primary mission for the proposed CCHRC and UCSF-IWHRCH Community-Academic partnership is to establish accessible, evidence-based, and sustainable self-help resources via the Internet to promote smoking cessation among Chinese Americans. The proposed Pilot Community Academic Research Award is designed to build a solid foundation for this mission by accomplishing these 4 goals: 1) strengthen the partnership between CCHRC and UCSF-IWHRC and establish a Task Force with memberships from new partners to formulate recruitment and intervention strategies for Chinese smokers in California; 2) develop an Internet stop smoking intervention in the Chinese language through the use of a collaborative community and committee approach; 3) explore innovative outreach methods of recruiting Chinese smokers for an Internet smoking cessation intervention program; and 4) conduct a preliminary feasibility test with 60 Chinese smokers residing in California to estimate recruitment feasibility, intervention usage, and acceptability of the newly developed Internet smoking cessation intervention. The project will result in a strong community-academic partnership between CCHRC and UCSF-IWHRC and the findings will be used to refine the intervention and prepare of a larger study toward establishing an evidence-based Internet-based intervention targeting Chinese smokers. |
