Southeast Asian community health workers and their roles as patient navigators for women seeking breast health services

Community health workers (CHWs) developed and implemented this project, the first community-based participatory research study to investigate how CHWs help to navigate patients from four Southeast Asian (SEA) communities in Southern California throughout the entire breast cancer care continuum. Our collaborative goal was to identify how CHWs address cultural differences and systemic barriers to effectively support immigrant, low-income SEA women (Cambodian, Laotian, Thai and Vietnamese) to obtain breast health care services.

Four CHWs conducted 16 focus groups with 110 SEA women representing different stages of the care continuum. We will present findings from these focus groups to cover three specific aims: 1) Explain how CHWs enable SEA women to seek breast health services, 2) Describe the roles, skills, and personal qualities of SEA community health navigators, and 3) Identify the essential topics and elements for a CHW breast health navigation training curriculum.

Focus group participants described CHWs as navigators who assist clients to access and utilize breast health services by serving various roles: 1) assisting with making appointments, 2) filling out forms/ paperwork at appointments, 3) assisting with financial assistance and benefits programs, 4) translation and interpretation, 5) transportation, 6) logistical navigation and 7) emotional support. CHWs did not just help to steer clients through the health care appointment and health care system; they also helped clients to navigate community resources so that health services were readily accessible. Respondents felt all of these roles and skills were important topics to cover in a training curriculum for community breast health navigators.