Which Korean American churches can best assist in cancer prevention and control research?

One of the five largest Asian minority groups in the U.S., Korean Americans are under represented in health research. Churches may be a promising venue through which they can be reached because a high proportion of Korean Americans attend churches regularly with estimates ranging from 67% to over 80%.

We conducted telephone surveys with Korean Christian churches in Los Angeles County in order to characterize them and in-depth interviews with 16 church leaders to assess their interest in participating in a UCLA study on Korean American health.

In our survey of 254 churches, we found that over a third of the churches (35%) were located in Koreatown. A third (34%) of Korean churches were very small (<50 members). Seven (3%) were “mega churches” (> 1000 members) but together accounted for approximately 42% of the church going population. Most (87%) were interested in collaboration with UCLA. Their interest did not correlate with denomination or location, but a majority (71%) of churches that were not interested tended to be small (< 50 members). Interviews with Korean church leaders suggested that churches are very receptive to collaboration and willing to share resources (i.e. facility, church networks, volunteers) with cancer researchers. Moreover, they suggested that Korean churches may serve a role in providing important health information to many Korean Americans who have barriers to accessing the health care system.

These findings will guide our future community-based research among Korean Americans.