Combating cambodian health disparities: Using CBPR to reach isolated, high-risk populations

This presentation will build on the preliminary findings from a community based participatory research (CBPR) study addressing health disparities in Cambodian refugee communities in the U.S. presented at the 2012 APHA annual meeting. Emphasis will be on the CBPR approach used to develop a study using technology in a public health effort to collect health data in an isolated, high-risk population with significant health disparities. Community leaders from six community-based organizations around the country were engaged in a collaborative process to develop and implement every step of the research including: shaping the focus on the study; determining the research methods and protocols; developing the community survey questions; providing supervision of community health worker (CHW) surveyors; assessing the feasibility and effectiveness of the training of community health workers to use handheld tablet technology and spoken (Khmer) format to collect community health data from diverse community members, including non-literate participants; and interpretation of the survey findings. CHWs collected survey data from a convenience sample of 371 Cambodian adults from six U.S. cities matched to the national gender and age distribution of Cambodians from the 2010 census. The presentation will share best practices in community mobilization and lessons learned regarding the challenges encountered, as well as successful strategies to overcome these challenges. The findings from this study will likely be valuable to other refugee communities who seek to gather community level data to inform both policies and practices for empowering refugees and their families to lead productive, healthy lives in America.