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About 4 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have limited English proficiency, a disadvantage when it comes to accessing health information and communicating with health care providers. To help address the problem, the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training (AANCART) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) have launched the Asian and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials (APICEM) Web tool, a searchable online database of Asian-language cancer materials.

Funded by NCI, the new Web site offers health care providers a one-stop source for cancer education materials for their Asian and Pacific Islander patients. Providers can search for materials by specific Asian language, cancer site, or topic. All materials catalogued on the site have been screened by expert reviewers for medical accuracy, linguistic appropriateness, and cultural relevance.

APICEM may be accessed from the ACS Web site at http://www.cancer.org/apicem or the AANCART Web site at http://www.aancart.org/apicem. Materials are available in Khmer, Chamorro, Chinese, Hawaiian, Hmong, Ilokano, Korean, Samoan, Tagalog, Tongan, and Vietnamese. English-language materials that have been culturally tailored for Native Hawaiian populations are also indexed. Information in other languages and on additional topics will be added as more materials are screened and approved.

"NCI is very proud of this historic database, which will improve the transfer of critical cancer information to Asians and Pacific Islanders," said Dr. Mark Clanton, NCI deputy director and deputy director for cancer care delivery systems. "Advances such as this bring us closer to eliminating suffering and death due to cancer among Asians and Pacific Islanders."

AANCART, which is part of NCI's Community Networks Program disparities-reduction initiative, brings together researchers and community advocates from Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, and Boston in a coordinated effort to reduce cancer among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. AANCART is headquartered at the University of California, Davis, near Sacramento.

"This new Web resource was developed in response to the need we heard from the community and NCI for a single point of access for authoritative cancer education materials for lay audiences," explained AANCART Principal Investigator Dr. Moon S. Chen, Jr., associate director for cancer disparities and research at the UC Davis Cancer Center.

Sally West Brooks, chair of the ACS national board of directors, added, "Until now, health care providers may have had to go to several different organizations to find appropriate materials for their patients. 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."