The Asian American Health Coalition (AAHC) dba HOPE Clinic proposes to develop a the project called “Eliminating Cancer Disparities in the multicultural community of Southwest Houston”, to address the great cancer disparities in the Asian American community of Houston as well as other ethnic and racial groups receiving care at HOPE Clinic. While the target populations for this project are Asian Americans living and working in Southwest Houston, services will also be offered to Hispanic, African Americans and Refuges and all who are patients of the clinic.

This project will address breast, cervical and liver cancer. Houston is home to the 3rd largest Asian community in the country and ...

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The Asian American Health Coalition (AAHC) dba HOPE Clinic proposes to develop a the project called “Eliminating Cancer Disparities in the multicultural community of Southwest Houston”, to address the great cancer disparities in the Asian American community of Houston as well as other ethnic and racial groups receiving care at HOPE Clinic. While the target populations for this project are Asian Americans living and working in Southwest Houston, services will also be offered to Hispanic, African Americans and Refuges and all who are patients of the clinic.

This project will address breast, cervical and liver cancer. Houston is home to the 3rd largest Asian community in the country and the fastest growing after California. Nearly 200,000 Asians live in Houston, yet HOPE Clinic is the only clinic targeting this population. 80% of the people in this community speak a language other than English and have particular challenges accessing early detection screenings and health care services in general. This community has great challenges accessing preventive care, and providing them with appropriate specialty care is a great challenge due to language, transportation, knowledge about the health care system, resulting in delays in cancer treatment.

HOPE Clinic is located in the heart of Asia Town in Alief, the most diverse neighborhood in Houston. The clinic provides primary and preventive care to all regardless of their ability to pay; it provides well children and well women exams, sick visits, mammograms, pharmacy services, immunizations and lab. One of the unique characteristics of HOPE is that its staff is 90% bilingual an provides services in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Karne, Arabic and Spanish.

The main goal of this project is to reduce the cancer burden in Asian Americans in Houston. Cancer has been the leading cause of death of Asians since 1980. HOPE has chosen to address Cervical, Breast and Liver cancers. Two of these three cancers chosen for this project are an unusual and unnecessary burden in the Asian community, unusual because both Cervical and Liver cancers are associated with infectious agents; and unnecessary due to the low participation in preventive health practices, such as early detection and regular screenings.

HOPE Clinic will use a national best practice model to develop a cost effective, high quality and community-based cancer prevention program, that will be able to be replicated and that has specific measurable outcomes. Houston is one of the largest Medical Research Centers in the US, yet there is gap between cancer research discovery and the delivery of those research findings in form of improved cancer care. HOPE is committed to bringing those services closer to the community and helping patients access those cutting edge services.

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