Two unique community-based research initiatives will
provide health awareness and interventions to underserved
Korean Americans at risk for diabetes and high blood
pressure.
Armed with grants totaling nearly $4 million from the
National Institutes of Health and working in partnership
with the Johns Hopkins
School of Nursing and the Korean Resource Center in
Howard County, Md., nurse researcher Miyong Kim will employ
community-based participatory research methods to address
and surmount the health care barriers facing many ethnic
minority populations today.
In a $3.5 million study funded by the National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute, Kim will explore health literacy
interventions for Korean-Americans with high blood
pressure. The findings not only will contribute to
knowledge about the connection between health literacy and
the control of high blood pressure but will also test
community-based participatory research approaches such as
the use of lay community health workers in delivering
health interventions to individuals with limited English
proficiency.
A second study, funded as a $500,000 pilot project by
the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases, will focus on improving disease control and
quality of life for Korean-Americans with type 2 diabetes.
Working within the community, Kim and co-investigators will
gather feasibility data on how effective diabetes
self-management procedures can be adapted for a population
where diabetes is a growing health problem and limited
English language skills can create barriers to care.
Kim, an associate professor at the School of Nursing
who is herself an immigrant, is well-known throughout the
United States and internationally for her culturally
sensitive research among ethnic minorities. Her conduct of
the first and only systematic assessment of cardiovascular
risk among Korean-Americans led to the first
community-based nursing intervention project implemented
within the Korean-American population in more than 100
years of immigration history.
After years of successful community-based
participatory research and intervention, Kim said she sees
the new grants as validation of both the community-based
methodology and the continuing needs of an at-risk
population.
"Despite the tremendous progress made in improving
overall health in the U.S. during the last decade, too many
ethnic populations are still experiencing health care
gaps," she said. "These studies and more aimed at
addressing health literacy may be the keys that truly open
the doors to a healthier version of the American dream."
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