Storytelling as a health communication tool in the Asian American community

Background: The Asian American Health Initiative (AAHI) was established to eliminate health disparities that exist between Asian Americans and their non-Asian counterparts in Montgomery County, Maryland. Aligning with innovative community-centered health communication tools such as photovoice and photonovela, AAHI developed a health storybook entitled, “Voices among the Silent: Stories of Struggle and Strength from Asian Americans.” Storytelling has enormous communicative powers to educate, build community capacity, and foster healing.

Objective: To outline the development of a community tool intended to raise awareness of the social and economic factors affecting the health status of Asian Americans.

Methods: Interviews were conducted with sixteen community members who shared personal journeys on a range of topics including cancer survival, immigration, sexuality and social isolation. Narratives were written and revised with feedback from the community. Each story is accompanied by research evidence and health information on the respective topic.

Results: This project provided a perceived silent minority group a platform to speak up about health issues and offer words of wisdom to the public. Feedback was generally positive; individuals felt that they could identify with the stories and that it provided cultural insight into the Asian American community in a creative manner, compared to other standard mechanisms.

Discussion: Storytelling is an innovative mechanism to assist community members, the health sector, and policy-makers to play an active role in prevention and to improving the health and wellness of Asian Americans. Expansion to digital-storytelling is being explored as a valuable outreach and advocacy tool for the community.