TCM Practitioners as Complementary Health Educators for Colorectal Cancer Prevention Among Chinese Americans in San Francisco

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cancer among Chinese Americans. Although effective prevention exists through CRC screening, rates of screening in this population are low. Prior studies indicate that Chinese Americans frequently utilize Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) providers. The goal is to explore whether these providers can serve as a useful addition to a community-based lay health educator strategy, given their unique role and accessibility within the community. As a result, we have begun a collaboration with them.

As part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) trial to increase CRC screening among Chinese American age 50 to 75 in San Francisco, our community-academic research team conducted 2 focus groups with TCM providers and 2 focus groups with their patients. The purpose was to assess the feasibility of working with TCM providers as “complementary health educators” to promote CRC screening with their patients. We found that traditional medicine, especially herbal medicine, was perceived as a first source of primary health care among many older Chinese and also among those newly immigrated. The TCM providers shared in common many beliefs with their patients regarding the medicine. The traditional Chinese concepts of disease causation and prevention were quite different from the perspectives of Western medicine. However, both TCM providers and patients were open to using traditional providers to communicate western biomedical information about CRC screening. Research methods, findings from focus groups, and implications for ongoing work about effective health promotion approaches in this community will be presented.