Cancer is the leading cause of death among Asian Americans (1). Although progress has been made in lowering cancer incidence and mortality, many minority groups have not fully or equitably benefited from this progress (2). Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the major form of primary liver cancer. Asian Americans have the highest HCC incidence and mortality rates of all ethnic groups in the United States (3). Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the most common cause of HCC, accounting for 80% of all cases worldwide (4). Although HBV prevalence is low among whites in the United States (0.1%), as many as 1 in 10 foreign-born Asian Americans are chronically infected with HBV (5). The prevalence of chronic HBV among Asian immigrants to the United States is generally reflective of the HBV prevalence in their countries of origin and varies from 2% in Japanese Americans to 11.3% in Chinese Americans (6). In a recent study of Asian Americans in Maryland, 4.5% were chronically infected with HBV (7). A study in New York City reported prevalence of chronic HBV infection among Asian Americans in that city at 14.8% (8).

HCC (hereafter referred to as “liver cancer”) incidence and mortality rates are higher among Asian Americans than any other ethnic group in the United States (9). A quarter of patients with HBV will eventually die of liver cancer or liver failure (10). Despite existing public health efforts on HBV vaccination, liver cancer incidence among Asian Americans increased from 1990 to 2008 (11). In a recent study of age-adjusted cancer rates among Asian Americans in California (12), Vietnamese men had the highest incidence of liver cancer of all racial/ethnic groups (54.3 per 100,000). Incidence among Korean men (33.7 per 100,000) and Chinese men (23.3 per 100,000) was much higher than among non-Hispanic white men (6.8 per 100,000).

Our study, the Asian American Liver Cancer Education Program, was conducted in response to this cancer-related health disparity. The program’s goal is to develop and implement a culturally integrated educational program to promote HBV screening and increase awareness of liver cancer prevention among the high-risk Asian American population. Because many Asian Americans are not acculturated and are often linguistically isolated, they are considered a hard-to-reach population for the development and implementation of cancer education and prevention programs. We conducted a randomized controlled study to evaluate the effectiveness of a liver cancer education program focusing on HBV screening behavior among 3 Asian American subgroups: Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Approximately 78.0% of participants (n = 688) completed the telephone survey at the 6-month follow-up. Those who dropped out of the study (n = 189; attrition rate, 21.6%) were not statistically different from those who remained in both arms in age, sex, marital status, family history of HBV infection, health status, baseline HBV screening, and knowledge of HBV infection. However, education was associated with dropouts. College graduates were more likely to follow-up than their less-educated counterparts (57.4% vs 37.6%, P < .001). Race/ethnicity was also associated with dropping out; Vietnamese were more likely to drop out than Chinese or Koreans (39.7%, 34.9%, and 25.4%, respectively, P .010). We reached 78.2% of intervention group participants and 78.7% of control group participants for telephone follow-up.

At baseline, the average age of the 877 participants was 45.1 years (standard deviation [SD], 13.5 y); 58.5% were women and 13.2% had less than a high school education Table 1. Approximately two-thirds of participants had health insurance. About 14% reported that they had a family history of HBV infection. About 38% had spent less than 25% of their lives in the United States. The 2 study groups appeared well-matched at both the individual and cluster levels with respect to demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, health insurance coverage, and self-rated physical and mental health.

Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics and adjusted odds ratio for the primary study outcome, the number of participants not previously tested (n = 446) who reported they had been tested for HBV at 6-month follow-up, for intervention and control groups. A total of 27 clusters (CBOs) were included in the study, 15 for the intervention group (n = 220) and 12 for the control group (n = 226). The intervention group had higher HBV screening rates at follow-up than the control group (33.6% vs 9.7%) without any adjustment.

In the multiple logistic regression analysis, the overall adjusted odds of a participant self-reporting having had HBV screening at 6-month follow-up was significantly higher for the intervention group than for the control group (odds ratio [OR], 4.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.30–9.32, P < .001; [Table 2]). When further adjusted for ethnicity in Model 2, the odds of HBV screening at 6-month follow-up for the intervention group increased to 5.13 compared with the control group (95% CI, 3.14–8.39; P < .001). We also found that Chinese Americans and Vietnamese Americans had higher odds of being screened at 6-month follow-up than Korean Americans, after adjusting for the intervention effect (OR, 3.00; 95% CI, 1.66–5.41 for Chinese Americans and OR, 3.59; 95% CI, 2.04–6.34 for Vietnamese Americans; both P < .001). Several factors motivated participants in the intervention group to obtain HBV screening in the 6 months following the educational program (Table 3). Among the 74 respondents in the intervention group who obtained HBV screening in that period, 78.4% (n = 58) reported that our educational program motivated them to do so. In the subset analysis of the 58 who were motivated by our education program, 86.2% identified the slide presentation as the primary motivator followed by the role-playing video (32.8%) and photonovel (31.0%). Discussion after the presentation (25.9%) and the resource list for HBV screening (15.5%) were also important motivators for screening.

Liver cancer is one of the few cancers with increasing incidence rates in the United States (21). This is due in part to high HBV infection rates among foreign-born Asian Americans (9). Moreover, chronic HBV infection is often asymptomatic. People who are infected can appear and feel healthy but can still transmit the virus, which can advance to severe liver diseases. HBV screening is the primary liver cancer prevention method; it enables identification of persons at risk to encourage them to obtain a series of HBV vaccinations as the secondary prevention method. All these preventive practices begin with identification of a person’s status of HBV infection. Hence, it is important to promote HBV screening in high-risk populations.

This randomized controlled trial demonstrated that a culturally integrated intervention with multiple components was effective in increasing HBV screening. We found that the odds for completing HBV screening were more than 5 times higher for the intervention group than for the control group after adjusting for ethnicity, age, and the cluster effect. This result was consistent across subgroups, although the odds ratio was highest for the Vietnamese intervention group and lowest for the Korean intervention group. Consistent with previous studies in HBV testing and Papanicolaou testing among Asian Americans, the overall magnitude and consistency of findings across the subgroups strengthen confidence in the effect of the intervention (22,23).

A salient issue for being screened for HBV during the 6-month follow-up period was whether participants were motivated by our program. We learned that our culturally and linguistically tailored intervention increases HBV screening and is important for immigrants with language barriers or of lower socioeconomic status (24–27). Lower neighborhood socioeconomic status is associated with liver cancer incidence (28). Foreign-born Asian Americans are 5 times more likely to have liver cancer than their US-born counterparts (29). Promising results from our study suggest that an appropriate slide presentation may be used alone or in combination with a role-play video or photonovel in various Asian American communities to increase HBV screening. Furthermore, findings from our process evaluation of the photonovels indicate that they are effective teaching tools, especially for less educated and low-literacy participants (19).

Our study has some limitations. First, the primary outcome, receipt of HBV screening, was self-reported. Some participants were confused about the difference between a liver function test and an HBV screening test. We clarified these 2 tests in the survey, pointing out that the HBV screening test is only required once in a lifetime. Nevertheless, the extent of reliability and validity of the self-report is not certain. In a study that evaluated a hepatitis intervention, Taylor et al reported low cross-verification of self-reports of screening with the medical record (22). Future study is recommended that includes HBV serological testing to assess the status of HBV infection. Second, findings in these concentrated populations in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area may not be generalizable to Asians who are more acculturated or living in other types of communities or geographical settings. Third, those who voluntarily participated in the study might be more motivated to learn about HBV infection and liver cancer, and these findings could overestimate the effect of a similar intervention if conducted within a less motivated population. However, the use of a similarly motivated control group that was recruited in the same manner strengthens the causal validity of our intervention effect. Finally, although effective, our screening population was small and additional components or repeated interventions are likely to be needed.

Despite the limitations, a strength of this study is that culturally and linguistically integrated methods such as recruitment, face-to-face interviews, and telephone contacts built trust and rapport with participants. The intervention program, which included an HBV slide presentation, role-playing video, and photonovels, was developed and tested in respective Asian languages with pictures featuring Asian Americans. This likely helped participants identify with messages in the materials. Because participants were interacting with researchers, staff, and interviewers with the same ethnic background, they likely felt more comfortable with asking questions in their languages. Conducting training in recipients’ native language may be an effective tool to motivate them to have screening and to increase knowledge of HBV infection. Second, we were successful in recruiting hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations in spite of challenges in capturing these groups, which face cultural, linguistic, and economic barriers. CAB members helped us to determine how and where to recruit non-English speaking immigrants. CAB members shared perspectives from the community relevant to the development, implementation, and potential sustainability of effective intervention activities and used their personal and social networks to encourage the participation of CBOs and individuals. They worked closely with the research team on all aspects of the study and were essential to this research project for ensuring the cultural relevance of intervention strategies and facilitating community competence.

In conclusion, this culturally integrated intervention program yielded a substantial increase in screening behavior in underserved, high-risk, Asian minority populations. We recommend providing culturally and linguistically integrated educational programs as one way to change social norms to increase preventive behavior. These study findings provide a framework for large-scale community-based interventions to promote liver cancer prevention and control in high risk subgroups of Asian Americans, which could contribute toward achieving the Healthy People 2020 program goal of improving HBV screening among minority populations (30).