Co-Designed Culturally Tailored Cancer Screening Promotion Program With Chinese-Australian: Using a Community Partnership Approach

Issue Addressed: Despite national cancer screening programs in Australia, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, particularly Chinese-Australians, demonstrate significantly lower participation rates in cancer screening. Cultural beliefs, language barriers and limited health literacy contribute to this disparity, highlighting the need for culturally tailored interventions. Methods: A culturally tailored cancer awareness education and screening promotion program was developed and implemented using a community partnership approach. A consumer engagement panel comprising Chinese community members, cancer survivors and community leaders was established to guide program development and implementation. Twenty-four educational sessions were delivered in Cantonese or Mandarin to 821 Chinese-Australians. The program's effectiveness was evaluated using pre- and post-intervention questionnaires assessing cancer knowledge, screening awareness and screening intentions. Results: Significant improvements were observed in participants' awareness of screening practices (bowel screening: 50.1% to 100%; breast awareness: 78.8% to 100%; mammogram: 65.8% to 95.6%; cervical screening: 86.5% to 96.9%). Screening intentions within 6 months increased substantially across all cancer types (bowel: 7.4% to 37%; breast awareness: 21.2% to 77.6%; mammogram: 18.9% to 47.7%; cervical: 39.8% to 73.1%). About 9 out of 13 questions regarding cancer knowledge and beliefs showed significant improvement post-intervention. Conclusions: The community partnership approach and culturally tailored cancer education effectively improved cancer screening awareness and intentions among Chinese-Australians. So What?: This study provides a successful model for developing and implementing culturally sensitive cancer screening promotion programmes, which can be adapted for other CALD communities to address health disparities in cancer screening participation.