Health Literacy Intervention for Korean Americans with HPB

描述(申请人提供)：尽管在过去的十年里，美国人在改善心脏健康方面取得了巨大的进步，但许多少数族裔人口仍然面临着显著的健康差距。特别是，英语能力有限的人群健康素养低，无疑阻碍了制定有效的战略，以改善健康结果和缩小健康差距。这项研究申请是为了回应广泛认识的健康素养促进干预的需要而制定的。这项研究的目的是以韩裔美国人社区为例，回答在语言和/或社会孤立的少数族裔社区的健康素养干预领域解决关键知识差距的研究问题。这些问题包括：1)采用以社区为基础的参与性研究(CBPR)程序的以健康素养为重点的干预措施是否有效地促进健康素养，并在一个被称为临床研究“难以接触到”的人群中取得更好的HBP结果；以及(2)由非专业卫生工作者(即社区卫生工作者)与注册护士合作提供的干预在这样的社区中是否可以接受和有效。这项拟议的研究是一项基于社区的随机临床试验，具有延迟干预和纵向重复测量设计，将使我们能够确定拟议的以健康素养为重点的高血压干预的有效性。共有360名韩裔美国老年人将参与这项为期两年的研究。虽然这项研究项目的重点是韩裔美国移民老年人的识字促进和HBP控制，但我们相信，这种干预原则和方法的核心组成部分可以为其他研究人员提供有意义的见解，这些研究人员正在寻求开发有效的、对文化敏感的健康素养计划，以满足全美社会和/或语言上孤立的患有HBP的少数群体的需求。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite the tremendous progress that has been made in improving heart health in the US population during the last decade, many ethnic minority populations are still experiencing significant health disparity gaps. In particular, low health literacy in populations with limited English skills has undoubtedly hindered the development of effective strategies for improving health outcomes and reducing health disparity gaps. This research application is formulated in response to the widely recognized need for health literacy promoting intervention. This research effort is designed to answer research questions that address critical knowledge gaps in the field of health literacy intervention for linguistically and/or socially isolated ethnic minority communities, using the Korean American community as an example. These questions include whether or not: 1) a health literacy-focused intervention using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) process will be effective in promoting health literacy and achieving better HBP outcomes in a community that is known as one of the "hard-to reach" populations for clinical research; and (2) an intervention delivered by lay health workers (i.e., community health workers) teamed with registered nurses will be acceptable and effective in such a community. The proposed study is a community-based, randomized clinical trial with delayed intervention and a longitudinal repeated measures design that will allow us to determine the effectiveness of the proposed health literacy-focused HBP intervention. A total of 360 Korean American seniors will participate in this study over two- year period. While the focus of this research project is literacy promotion and HBP control in Korean American immigrant seniors, it is our belief that the core components of this intervention's principles and methodology can provide meaningful insights to other researchers who are seeking to develop effective, culturally sensitive health literacy programs to meet the needs of socially and/or linguistically isolated minority groups with HBP throughout the U.S.