Getting Asian Americans INFORMED to Facilitate COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination

PROJECT SUMMARYThis time sensitive proposal, Getting Asian Americans INFORMED to Facilitate COVID-19 Testing andVaccinations, is to identify and address sociocultural, ethical and behavioral barriers related to COVID-19testing and vaccination to enable Asian Americans to make well-informed decisions about getting tested forCOVID-19. Asian Americans have experienced among the highest COVID-19 mortality rates when measuredin case fatality and proportionate mortality due to COVID-19. Excess COVID-19 related deaths observed inAsian Americans are in part due to under-testing. Asian Americans may face multiple challenges, includingsociocultural (limited English proficiency, lack of trust, excess fears and social stigma related COVID-19),ethical (lack of proven benefits of various guidelines, unequal access to testing resources), and behavioral(tobacco and e-cigarette use, other competitive behaviors) factors. The pandemic is rapidly evolving andpresents urgent needs to develop highly efficient channels to communicate accurate, easily comprehensive,cultural appropriate and practical information. This application is a supplement to a parent R01 "A Family-Focused Intervention for Asian American Male Smokers," as known to the public as a community-basedintervention research program "Healthy Family Project." The Healthy Family Project has provided more than1,100 smokers and families a family-oriented intervention delivered by lay health workers (LHW) showingefficacies in in reducing tobacco use and promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity among Chinese andVietnamese Americans. Prior to the parent R01, our team tested LHW interventions targeting individualbehavior change in increasing colorectal, cervical and breast cancer screening and hepatitis B and C testing,and healthy nutrition and physical activity among Chinese, Hmong, Korean, Filipino and VietnameseAmericans. Leveraging the community partnerships and the individual / family-based LHW interventionapproaches that we developed, we propose these aims: (1) Develop and evaluate "INdividual and Family-Oriented Responsive Messaging EDucation" (INFORMED) intervention in increasing knowledge about COVID-19 testing and decreasing decisional conflicts of getting tested for COVID-19. A 2-arm randomized controlledtrial will compare INFORMED delivered by LHW educational outreach plus SMS text messaging to SMS textwith LHW support. (2) Conduct in-depth prospective investigation of sociocultural, ethical and behavioralfactors related to COVID-19 testing in Chinese, Hmong and Vietnamese American over-time. In addition, wewill explore factors affecting acceptance for vaccination research trial participation and vaccination uptake andhow vaccination acceptance is associated with COVID-19 testing uptake.