Building Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships with the Afghan Immigrant Community

Background: Despite evidence that early detection leads to reductions in breast cancer mortality, it continues to be underused by immigrant women. Muslim immigrant women also show lack of awareness and low utilization breast health care services. The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has resulted in the largest number of forced immigrants; the United States is the home of more than 60,000 Afghans, most live in the San Francisco Bay Area, two-thirds are female.

Methods: CBPR methods provide a preliminary understanding of how Afghan women view their breast health. 1) relationships were developed within the Afghan community and a partnership was created. Meetings were held with community leaders and the broader community. These meetings resulted in enhanced cultural understanding such as appropriate customs such as “tea parties”, “story telling” and gender specific activities to build trust and open communication with the women in the community as well as plans for equity between the community and the University (UCB) in leadership and power (budget). 2)Together,a semi-structured interview schedule was developed which included socio-demographics, health history measures, knowledge and beliefs held about the women's views of their health. 3) The interviews were conducted by women from the community who UCB trained.

Results: Together we interviewed 53 non-English speaking first generation immigrant Muslim Afghan women 40 years and older about their health beliefs and health habits.

Conclusions: Findings from the interviews were used to design an intervention project to improve breast health.