Cancer Among Asian Americans Essay

Introduction

Asian Americans is a racial group defined as individuals having origins in any of the original habitats of Southeast Asia, Far East, or the Indian subcontinent. Based on the Census Bureau population estimate, there are approximately 17.3 million Asian Americans living in the United States (U.S.), which account for 5.4% of the nation's population (Iceland, 2014). Asian Americans are the only section of the U.S. population that suffers cancer as the leading cause of death (Torre, Sauer, Chen, KagawaSinger, Jemal, & Siegel, 2016). The unusual factors of cancer burden among the Asian Americans encompass experiencing proportionally more cancers of infectious origin, for example, hepatitis B virus-induced liver and stomach cancer and human papillomavirus-induced cervical cancer. In addition, they experience an increasing number of cancers linked to "Westernization" than any other racial population.

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In particular, this racial group has the highest rates of stomach and liver cancers (Torre et al., 2016). They are almost three times more likely to develop liver cancer than non-Hispanic whites are and twice as probable to develop stomach cancer. In addition, they are less likely to seek for cancer screening services than other racial groups in the U.S. For instance, Asian American women have the lowest breast-screening rate among any ethnic group of the American population and are normally diagnosed at a later phase compared to other racial groups (DeSantis, Ma, Goding Sauer, Newman, & Jemal, 2017). Consequently, Asian Americans are twice as possible to die from stomach cancer and almost 2.5 times more probable to die of liver cancer as compared to the non-Hispanic whites ((Torre et al., 2016).

There is a need for a solution to this unusual and unnecessary cancer burden among the Asian Americans. It is to a certain extent unnecessary if hurdles to overcoming resistance to physician visits, cancer screening, and culturally competent interventions to minimize unhealthy diet, smoking, and increasing proper exercise can be eliminated. Thus, this plan proposes that there is a need to provide education that will help Asian Americans overcome resistance to cancer screening.

The Rationale for the Proposed Solution through Ethical Theory

This plan uses the utilitarianism ethical theory to provide a rationale for the proposed intervention. According to Marckmann, Schmidt, Sofaer, and Strech (2015), in this theory, judging the rightness of an action depends on an estimation of its subsequent practical result instead of its conformity to principles of duty. It considers ethically best that intervention that will result in the greatest net benefits over harms. In addition, it is egalitarian in considering everyone's benefit and equally weighting each person's good, as opposed to privileging certain groups of people (Marckmann et al., 2015). Thus, based on this theory it is ethically best to educate the Asian American community about cancer screening because it will lower the prevalence of the issue among them. Similarly, it is ethical to consider the dire need for cancer care amongst this minority group.

Implementation of Systems Theory, Action Research, and Principles of Leadership and Collaboration

The ecological systems theory can be applied to analyze the aspects that influence Asian Americans' patterns of seeking cancer screening. Such aspects include ethnicity, acculturation, culture, stigma, social support, gender, and age (Eldredge, Markham, Ruiter, Kok, & Parcel, 2016). Asian American families exhibit an array of subsystems in multigenerational households, each with its own culture-specific family roles and expectations for behavior, reflecting their cultural values and beliefs, socioeconomic need and resources, and social orientation. Such information indicates that any consideration of Asian American cancer screening behaviors must be understood as being more intricate than going for cancer screening. Thus, the systems theory avails this information to help develop a successful intervention plan to help mitigate the cancer issue among Asian Americans by overcoming the resistance to cancer screening (Eldredge et al., 2016).

Action research is also important in resolving this cancer issue among Asian Americans. This is a form of comparative research on the conditions and effects of diverse forms of social action and study leading to social action that utilizes a spiral of stages, each of which is comprised of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding concerning the result of the action. Thus, action research should be conducted on the various aspects that compel Asian Americans to resist cancer screening, how to intervene, and ways to improve and refine the intervention to resolve the health problem.

Similarly, principles of leadership and collaboration can play a crucial role in resolving this cancer issue. Moreover, this is a dynamic problem and it will need interprofessional collaboration to mitigate (Weiss, Weiss, Tilin, & Morgan, 2018). This collaboration should begin with new and improved relationships among various stakeholders both within the healthcare sector and in the society. Such stakeholders should include health practitioners, family doctors, and leaders in faith-based organizations, businesses, health facilities, and community programs. Bringing various stakeholders together will help address the problem from all possible directions.

Evaluating the Success of the Proposed Intervention

Evaluating any intervention is essential to establish whether it works, to help refine solution delivery, and to avail feedback on the success of the intervention. Also, it helps to determine whether the intervention is appropriate for the target population. Various evaluation methods can be used to assess the success of the proposed intervention. First, a controlled before-after study is often the most practical technique for intervention evaluation. This method will involve observing the outcome of the interest, in this context, cancer rates, before and after the intervention in both the individuals who receive the program and those in a control group (Wood, Hardeman, Johnston, Francis, Abraham, & Michie, 2015). Second, before-after study without a control group is another method that this plan proposes to evaluate the success of the intervention. This technique will involve measuring the outcome of the education plan before and after its implementation (Wood et al., 2015). The method is simple and it can be conducted relatively cheaply as that is required is a sampling frame and a research team to conduct observations at various locations.

References

Bowling, A. (2014). Research methods in health: investigating health and health services. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

DeSantis, C. E., Ma, J., Goding Sauer, A., Newman, L. A., & Jemal, A. (2017). Breast cancer statistics, 2017, racial disparity in mortality by state. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 67(6), 439-448.

Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., & Parcel, G. S. (2016). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Iceland, J. (2014). A portrait of America: The demographic perspective (Vol. 1). Univ of California Press.

Marckmann, G., Schmidt, H., Sofaer, N., & Strech, D. (2015). Putting public health ethics into practice: a systematic framework. Frontiers in public health, 3, 23.

Torre, L. A., Sauer, A. M. G., Chen, M. S., KagawaSinger, M., Jemal, A., & Siegel, R. L. (2016). Cancer statistics for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, 2016: Converging incidence in males and females. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 66(3), 182-202.

Weiss, D., Weiss, D., Tilin, F. J., & Morgan, M. J. (2018). The Interprofessional Health Care Team. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Wood, C. E., Hardeman, W., Johnston, M., Francis, J., Abraham, C., & Michie, S. (2015). Reporting behaviour change interventions: do the behaviour change technique taxonomy v1, and training in its use, improve the quality of intervention descriptions?. Implementation Science, 11(1), 84.