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Current News
Study to Investigate the Impact of Culture on Health Literacy and Chronic Illness
Susan Shaw, an assistant professor in the anthropology department at The University of Arizona in Tucson, has received a grant from the National Cancer Institute to investigate the impact of culture on health literacy and chronic illness outcomes.
Shaw received the $837,000 grant with co-investigators Mark Nichter, a UA Regents' Professor in anthropology, and Anne Awad, CEO of Caring Health Center in Springfield, Mass.
This four-year, mixed-method study aims to broaden the understanding of health literacy by exploring often-neglected cultural factors that shape health literacy in low-income, ethnic minority and immigrant populations. Health literacy, defined as the ability to understand or act on medical/therapeutic instructions, is increasingly recognized as an important factor in patient compliance and chronic disease outcomes.
The study is based in Massachusetts at the Caring Health Center, where clinic patients from four ethnic groups and who have a medical diagnosis of diabetes or hypertension. The patients will be interviewed using an epidemiological survey while qualitative data will be collected through in-depth interviewing, home visits and chronic disease diaries.
Shaw says this study is critical to the growing literature on health literacy because, "Much of the existing research narrowly focuses on cognition and a patient's ability to read and comprehend instructions, while our previous research indicates that cultural background plays an important and under-emphasized role in a patient's willingness or ability to follow her physician's instructions, including obtaining recommended cancer screenings."
Located in a federally-designated refugee resettlement area, Caring Health Center is a federally-funded Section 330 primary care clinic that serves predominantly low-income and minority patients. The health center serves a patient population that is 34 percent African-American, 37 percent Hispanic, 15 percent Russian immigrant and 10 percent Vietnamese immigrants. More than 50 percent of CHC's adult patients require translation services.
For more information on the research, contact Susan J. Shaw, Ph.D., principal investigator, 520-621-4395 or shaws@email.arizona.edu.
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