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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Diane E. Weiner, PhD¹, Christine R. Romero, RN, BSN, PHN¹, and Deborah Wingard, PhD². (1) Indian Health Council, NARCH, P.O. Box 406, Pauma Valley, CA 92061, 760-525-3901, dianecanvt@yahoo.com, (2) Epidemiology, Dept Family & Preventive Medicine, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Dr, La Jolla, CA 92093

About 65,000 Natives reside in three neighboring counties of Southern California. Like American Indians elsewhere, California Natives tend to have advanced stages at cancer diagnosis, while complex infrastructural, economic, socio-cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers may restrict access to state of the art health care and education. California IHS contract clinics offer limited cancer screening and education and no oncology, cancer pain, or palliative care services. Existing palliative care programs target the general population, rather than Natives. Data from the ethnographic pilot study Palliative Care for Native Americans (Weiner and Wingard 2004) reveals several key issues about health education concerns. For instance, treatment protocols and associated interactions between patients and providers were often deemed extremely confusing by those with cancer and their family members. The language used to describe pain also differs between those with cancer and their health professionals. Importantly, pilot study participants shared their knowledge about ways to resolve these problems. The current CBR project, Miha Nykmut, employs anthropology, nursing, Native studies, and Public Health research techniques and theories to create, evaluate, and modify pain, palliative, and end-of-life care training for health professionals and California Indians. Our approach focuses on culturally sensitive and competent physical, psycho-social, and spiritual pain and end-of-life care education. This presentation will focus on the integrated approaches used to train health providers. We will discuss Native perspectives of cancer pain, pain management, and palliative care. We will also describe the methods developed to create and evaluate our provider education component.

Learning Objectives: At the close of this session, the participant will be able to

• Identify four cancer pain coping mechanisms of California American Indians
• Describe two methods researchers, health educators, and community advocates developed to train providers about Native perspectives of cancer pain and associated care
• Articulate four Community Based Research evaluation approaches of this training project

Keywords: Cancer, Native and Indigenous Populations

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No