Top Cancer Organizations Launch First Online Portal of Asian
Language Cancer Information
The Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training (AANCART)
and the American Cancer Society (ACS) have launched a searchable online database
of Asian language cancer materials. This effort is supported by the National
Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The Asian
and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials Web tool (APICEM) is designed
to help Asians and Pacific Islanders with limited English-speaking abilities
gain access to information on how to reduce their risks of preventable malignancies,
including cancers of the breast, cervix, colon, liver, lung and stomach.
"The National Cancer Institute is very proud of this historic database, which
will improve the transfer of critical cancer information to Asians and Pacific
Islanders. Advances such as this bring us closer to eliminating suffering and
death due to cancer among Asians and Pacific Islanders," said Mark Clanton, M.D.,
deputy director of the NCI for Cancer Care Delivery Systems.
The new Web resource, located on the American Cancer Society web site at http://www.cancer.org/apicem,
will be unveiled March 24, 2006, in Hawaii, at the annual meeting of AANCART.
AANCART is headquartered at the University of California, Davis in Sacramento. "Asians
and Pacific Islanders are dying, in too many cases, from a lack of basic information
about cancer," said Moon S. Chen, Jr., Ph.D., principal investigator of AANCART
and associate director of the UC Davis Cancer Center. "This new Web resource
was developed in response to the need we heard from the community, and the NCI,
for a single point of access for authoritative cancer education materials for
lay audiences. Through this Web portal, people will be able to download cancer
information materials that have been reviewed for scientific content and translated
into more than 12 Asian and Pacific languages. This site provides one-stop access
to an unprecedented volume of these materials."
The new database catalogues and provides links to print materials written in
the following languages: Khmer, Chamorro, Chinese, Hawaiian, Hmong, Ilokano,
Korean, Samoan, Tagalog, Tongan and Vietnamese, as well as English-language materials
culturally tailored for Native Hawaiian populations. Additional languages and
topics will be added as more materials become available.
"Until now, health care providers may have had to go to several different organizations
to find appropriate materials for their patients," said Sally West Brooks, chair
of the ACS national board of directors. "Some of the materials have been available
on Web sites, including our own. Others are on sites that may be difficult to
find or not easily searchable. This new site provides a single point of access
for all of the materials, and will permit a health-care provider to search for
patient information by language, type of cancer, cancer-related topic or organization.
As we continue to invite organizations that meet our criteria to contribute materials,
the site will become increasingly robust and powerful." All materials catalogued
on the site have been screened by expert reviewers for medical accuracy, linguistic
appropriateness and cultural relevance.
More than 12 organizations developed and contributed the materials, including:
the ACS; the California Department of Health Services; the San Francisco-based
Chinese Community Health Plan; the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and
University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.; the Hmong Women's Heritage Association
in Sacramento, Calif.; University of California, Los Angeles; and the Vietnamese
Community Health Promotion Project at the University of California, San Francisco.
In addition, four NCI-funded Community Networks Programs contributed content
or provided support for the Web portal: 'Imi Hale, the Native Hawaiian Cancer
Network, Honolulu, Hawaii; the Asian Community Cancer Network at Temple University
Philadelphia, Pa.; the American Samoa Community Cancer Network at the Lyndon
Baines Johnson Tropical Medical Center, Pago Pago, American Samoa; and the Weaving
an Islander Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training at California
State University, Fullerton.
"The new Web tool will make it easier for physicians and other health-care providers
to communicate cancer prevention and early detection messages to patients," said
Helen Chew, a medical oncologist at UC Davis Cancer Center and medical director
for the Sacramento AANCART.
"We have medical interpreters who speak 18 languages, including the most prevalent
Asian languages," Chew said. "But this new resource will allow us to also give
patients materials to take home, think about, discuss with family members, friends
or traditional healers, and refer to as new questions come up. This will be a
tremendous resource for all of us who take care of Asian and Pacific Islander
patients who have limited English proficiency or who prefer to read materials
in their native language. In the age of the Internet, we can and should make
life-saving information about cancer prevention and early detection available
to everyone."
To view the Asian and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials Web Tool:
Questions and Answers, please visit http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/APICEMQandA.
For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at http://www.cancer.gov,
or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
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agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical
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