Abstract PO-243: A community-engaged hepatitis B and C screening intervention in medically underserved African, Asian and Hispanic American communities

Abstract

Abstract Background Liver cancer incidence and death rate are on the rise in the US. racial/ethnic populations are disproportionally affected by liver cancer; from 1994 to 2014, liver cancer death rate rose by 57% in black/African Americans and 69% in Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans’ liver cancer mortality rate is 60% higher than that of non-Hispanic White. About 65% to 70% of liver cancer cases are caused by hepatitis B and C virus (HBV and HCV). Limited studies or programs have focused on addressing liver cancer in multiple disparity racial/ethnic populations. Methods The Community Outreach Core team of NCI funded U54 TUFCCC/HC Partnership engaged ten community-based organizations (CBOs) and jointly initiated a community-based HBV/HCV liver cancer prevention initiative, aimed to increase HBV and HCV screening in African, Asian and Hispanic American Communities using training community peer educators to co-implement the education. 503 community participants living in New York City and Greater Philadelphia areas participated in this initiative, and completed pre-, and post-education tests. Paired t test was used to measure the knowledge change from pre- to post-education, and Chi square test was conducted to detect the HBV/HCV testing among different racial/ethnic groups. A p value lower than 0.05 is considered statistically significant. All data analysis was conducted in Stata 15. Results All participants were from liver cancer disparity populations, including Asian (54.94%), African American (15.10%), and Hispanic (29.95%) Americans. Overall, significantly improved knowledge on HBV/HCV and liver cancer prevention were observed after the education. Participants’ average knowledge score on HBV/HCV increased significantly from pre- to post-education (7.14/10 vs.9.02/10, p<0.001), implying that they overall had better understandings on HBV/HCV transmission, prevention, and treatment (detailed information on HBV/HCV knowledge measurement will be presented in the poster). Moreover, participants were able to identify significantly more liver cancer risk factors after the intervention (1.5/5 vs. 3.1/5, p<0.001). Importantly, findings of the study revealed alarming results on low screening with HBV and HCV among participants; majority of the participants never had HBV (75.66%) or HCV testing (90.62%). Hispanics (82.05%) reported the highest rate of never had HBV test, followed by Asians (73.91%) and African Americans (73.21%). Asians (95.65%) were most likely to never had HCV test, followed by Hispanics (88.46%) and African Americans (75%). Furthermore, more than two thirds of the participants had never been recommended by their doctors to do HBV (68.77%) or HCV (73.31%) tests. Conclusions Our findings indicated that engage community to promote liver cancer prevention among disparity populations is an effective approach. HBV/HCV screening and liver cancer prevention should involve physicians’ effort. Citation Format: Wenyue Lu, Kerry Traub, Safe Ibrahim, Lin Zhu, Evelyn Gonzalez, Ada Wong, Nathaly Rubio-Torio, Grace Ma, Olorunseun Ogunwobi, Marilyn Fraser, Ming-Chin Yeh, Yin Tan. A community-engaged hepatitis B and C screening intervention in medically underserved African, Asian and Hispanic American communities [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: Thirteenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2020 Oct 2-4. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-243.