CHSU Discovery

Cervical cancer can be effectively prevented through early detection with a Pap test and HPV vaccination. However, cervical cancer screening (CCS) rates among Asian Americans (AsAms) remain low. We intend to identify barriers to CCS to increase CCS rates of Asian American individuals in the Central Valley by 5% from the current compliance rate of 45% through the creation of language-specific education material. We administered pilot phone surveys from self-identifying Asian females who are noncompliant with CCS at Omni clinics within California’s Central Valley. The survey collected information regarding age ethnicity, preferred spoken and written language, employment status, household income, highest level of education, marital status, number of children, history of pelvic examinations and cervical cancer screenings, attitudes/beliefs regarding cervical cancer screening, and their personal attitudes towards general barriers to screening. Based on the responses, we found that most patients strongly preferred a female physician and lacked knowledge that CCS is important. Limitations in our study involved conducting surveys Wednesday afternoons, potentially leading to an underrepresentation of individuals employed in standard 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM work schedules. Furthermore, non-English-speaking participants may have been underrepresented due to challenges in coordinating three-way phone calls with a translator.