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

This project "Getting Asian Americans INFORMED to Facilitate COVID-19 Testing and Vaccinations" is to identify and address sociocultural, ethical and behavioral barriers related to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing and vaccination to enable Asian Americans to make well-informed decisions about getting tested for COVID-19. Asian Americans have experienced high rates of COVID-19 related hospitalization and mortality rates when compared to non-Hispanic whites particularly among those who tested positive. Excess COVID-19 related deaths observed in Asian Americans are in part due to under-testing or delayed testing. Asian Americans may face multiple challenges, including sociocultural (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 and presents 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-based intervention research program "Healthy Family Project." Leveraging the community partnerships and the individual / family-based LHW intervention approaches developed by the study team, the proposed aims are: (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 controlled trial will compare INFORMED delivered by LHW educational outreach plus SMS text messaging to SMS text with LHW support. (2) Conduct in-depth prospective investigation of sociocultural, ethical and behavioral factors related to COVID-19 testing in Chinese, Hmong and Vietnamese American over-time. In addition, factors affecting acceptance for vaccination research trial participation and vaccination uptake and how vaccination acceptance is associated with COVID-19 testing uptake will be explored.

Inclusion criteria

• age 18 and older
• self-identify as Chinese, Hmong or Vietnamese
• able to read and/or speak: English, Chinese (Cantonese/Mandarin), Hmong or Vietnamese;
• have access to a mobile phone to receive SMS text messages

Exclusion criteria

• unwilling to receive SMS text messages from the project