Stories of our Men: American Indian/Alaska Native Colorectal Health

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): American Indian and Alaska Native have high rates of morbidity and mortality from colorectal cancer (CRC). Screening rates are low. Most educational materials often do not address the cultural or information needs of men in these communities. We will work with two tribal communities, one in Minnesota, and one in the Aleutian Islands to identify cultural knowledge, beliefs and needs of men to increase their intent to screen for CRC. Our specific aims: 1. Partner with tribal communities to create culturally appropriate movie vignettes intended to increase AIAN men's intent to obtain a CRC screen. 2. Create an American Indian and Alaska Native Men's Health Multi-Media web portal, populated with tribally-developed/physician-reviewed movie vignettes and other physician-reviewed resources using the voices, values and outlook of AIAN men in their native communities. This project is relevant to public health as AIAN men suffer from higher rates of CRC than majority populations in the United States. Consequently, absence of screening activity has a significant impact on AIAN populations, especially men, due to high mortality. With the collaboration of native communities, "Stories of our Men" is intended to increase AIAN intent to screen for CRC. Our development of the AIAN Men's web portal will enable these vignettes and other culturally-appropriate resources for AIAN men to be available to all native and non-native communities via community centers, tribal colleges, local public and academic libraries and national (e.g., MedlinePlus) and population specific web portals (NLM's Native Voices). "Stories of our Men" is innovative by closely collaborating with two native physician colleagues and their home communities. Additionally the co-PI is a Mayo Clinic Native American Oncologist, one of only two in the United States. Having multiple native physicians partnering with different AIAN communities is a rare opportunity in health disparities research and will likel increase trust and high participation of community members. In the first year, a Community Based Participatory Research approach will be used to engage male volunteers in both communities. Through focus groups led by native male physicians, we will learn along with the community, the ways in which they would like to produce movie vignettes to support their CRC health and improve their intent to screen. In the second year, community members will work on creating their own movie vignettes- these could range from personal-storytelling to scripted stories starring community members as the main actors. The roles and content will be created by the community members and reviewed for medical accuracy by the native physicians. Through the development of an AIAN Men's Health Web portal, we expect to provide indigenous community members, health care workers, health disparities researchers including public and academic librarians, freely available and culturally appropriate movie vignettes and other physician-reviewed materials specific to AIAN men. After analysis of community evaluations of the movie vignettes from these and other communities we expect to gain insight into the most effective practices of AIAN storytelling, and other informational and cultural tools o increase intent to screen with the goal of improving AIAN health equity.