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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Evaon Wong-Kim, MSW, MPH, PhD, Social Work, California State University, East Bay, 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd, Hayward, CA 94530, 510-885-2148, evaon@csueastbay.edu and Hee-Soon Juon, PhD, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, #712, Baltimore, MD 21205.

Background: Minorities are underrepresented in federally funded clinical trials. Research was conducted to examine issues relating to this problem. Findings from past research efforts indicated that this problem is twofold: on the one hand racism created barriers to many minorities to participate equally in federally funded clinical trials; on the other hand past incidents such as the Tuskegee experiment prevented minorities from trusting researchers to enroll in these trials due to fears that they will be treated unethically. Without enough patients from different races/ethnicities to participate in clinical trials, it is questionable whether minorities such as the immigrant population will benefit from life saving cancer research efforts. Methodology: We conducted two focus groups with 12 cancer patients in Cantonese to assess patients' knowledge and access to clinical trials. Semi-structured approach was used to focus on discussions relating to clinical trials and research ethics. Results: The themes extracted from the focus groups indicated a lack of information or understanding of clinical trials available for cancer patients. None of the patients in the two focus groups were invited to clinical trials when diagnosed with cancer. Patients expressed discomfort in participating in research. Many questions were raised regarding what research means. Conclusion: We found that non-English speaking Chinese patients experienced many different barriers to clinical trials in cancer treatment. The lack of understanding of research approach and language barrier prevented these patients equal access to participate in clinical trial. Ethical issues relating to this problem will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the barriers to cancer clinical trials experienced by non-English speaking patients
• Apply cultural competent appraches to working with patients qualify for cancer clinical trials
• Utilize resouces avaialble in the community to address this problem

Keywords: Access and Services, Cultural Competency

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered