Developing theoretically based and culturally appropriate interventions to promote hepatitis B testing in 4 Asian...

Hepatitis B infection is 5 to 12 times more common among Asian Americans than in the general US population and is the leading cause of liver disease and liver cancer among Asians. The purpose of this article is to describe the step-by-step approach that we followed in community-based participatory research projects in 4 Asian American groups, conducted from 2006 through 2011 in California and Washington state to develop theoretically based and culturally appropriate interventions to promote hepatitis B testing. We provide examples to illustrate how intervention messages addressing identical theoretical constructs of the Health Behavior Framework were modified to be culturally appropriate for each community.

Intervention approaches included mass media in the Vietnamese community, small-group educational sessions at churches in the Korean community, and home visits by lay health workers in the Hmong and Cambodian communities.

Use of the Health Behavior Framework allowed a systematic approach to intervention development across populations, resulting in 4 different culturally appropriate interventions that addressed the same set of theoretical constructs.

The development of theory-based health promotion interventions for different populations will advance our understanding of which constructs are critical to modify specific health behaviors.