Prevalence of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in Asian Americans

Objectives To report the prevalence of Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in foreign-born Asian Americans (AA) and to compare this with the general AA from 2010 BRFSS data. To examine the influential factors associated with HRQOL-4 including English proficiency, perceived racial discrimination, smoking, alcohol use, and sociodemographics. Background Quality of life (QOL) represents individuals’ subjective perception of multidimensional aspects of life including physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects. HRQOL represents the physical and mental health domain of QOL. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been measuring HRQOL to capture people’s overall perceptions about their health; HRQOL has become an important component of health surveillance (U.S. DHHS, 2000). While acculturation and racial discrimination have been negatively associated to the number of chronic health conditions and well-being of AA, their influence on HRQOL has not been studied. Public surveillance study has typically considered Asian Americans as a single group and little is known about how HRQOL and health-related risk factors vary among foreign-born Asian Americans including Chinese-, Korean-, and Vietnamese- Americans. Poster presented at APHA in Chicago Illinois.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/medoncposters/1000/thumbnail.jp

Do Recommendations by Healthcare Providers, Family-members, Friends, and Individual Self-Efficacy Increase Uptake of Hepatitis B Screening? Results of a Population-Based Study of Asian Americans

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection disproportionately affects Asian Americans but HBV screening rates among Asian American are substantially low. This study examines the impact of multiple recommendations and self-efficacy on HBV screening uptake among Asian Americans. Methods: Data for this study were from 872 Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese recruited for a liver cancer prevention program in the Washington D.C – Baltimore metropolitan area. Results: 410 (47%) respondents reported previous HBV screening. Only 19.8% recalled a physician recommendation. Higher level of HBV screening was reported among people who had physician recommendation, family member recommendation or friend recommendation. Perceived self-efficacy was also an important predictor to HBV screening. The effect of self-efficacy was significant in subgroup analyses among Chinese and Korean, but not for Vietnamese. Conclusion and Global Health Implications: The disproportional prevalence of HBV infection among Asian Americans is considered to be one of the most important health disparities for Asian population. Understanding the condition and screening behavior in this population is especially important. Our findings suggest that recommendation from physician and social networks should be encouraged for HBV screening among Asian Americans. Both recommendation and self-efficacy of HBV screening are important psychosocial constructs to be targeted in liver cancer prevention interventions. Key words: Hepatitis B Virus • Asian Americans • Screening • Recommendation • Self-efficacy Copyright © 2017 Lu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited