A multilevel intervention increased accrual of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders to a national breast cancer screening trial

ABSTRACT

Background: The University of Hawaii Cancer Center (UHCC) Minority/Underserved NCI Community Oncology Research Program (Hawaii MU NCORP) provides access to NCI-sponsored clinical trials in Hawaii. The Hawaii MU NCORP is dedicated to increasing minority and underserved accruals to clinical trials. Native Hawaiian women have the highest breast cancer incidence and mortality;only 26% of Micronesian women in Hawaii over the age of 40 have ever had a mammogram. In 2018, the Hawaii MU NCORP became a recruitment site for the ECOG-ACRIN Tomosynthesis Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (TMIST). A pilot study was launched in 2019, to support our NCORP recruitment of underrepresented Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander (NHPI) women to the TMIST study. Subsequently, specific funding was provided by the NCI's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities that enabled the UHCC's Office of Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) to develop an effective multilevel recruitment strategy together with the Hawaii MIU NCORP. Methods: To foster community awareness of the TMIST study among NHPI women, the UHCC COE hired a Community Health Educator (CHE). The CHE, a Pacific Islander woman, utilized small group educational sessions to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate cancer prevention information and promote the TMIST study to NHPI women in Hawaii. The CHE worked in partnership with Hawaii MU NCORP clinical research associates (CRAs) in these efforts. In 2020, statewide COVID-19 health and safety protocols were enacted, limiting public group interactions in Hawaii. Despite this challenge, the CHE successfully adapted the in-person educational sessions on clinical trials and TMIST to conduct sessions using Zoom and Facebook Messenger. Results: Before the hire of the CHE in 2019, only one Pacific Islander (Micronesian) woman was recruited to the TMIST in Hawaii. The CHE conducted 21 community health events with 426 attendees from 2019 to 2021. The Hawaii MU NCORP NHPI TMIST enrollment went from the 9.9% in 2018 to 2019, to 20.1% in 2019 to 2020 and to 33% in 2020 to 2021. To date, 18 Micronesian, 52 Native Hawaiian and 6 Other Pacific Islander women out of 353 participants ware enrolled. Conclusions: The multilevel intervention of our CHE, in collaboration with NCORP staff providing clinical trial awareness training and community outreach, resulted in increasing the enrollment of NHPI women to the TMIST Trial. CHE-led community health education sessions on cancer prevention can be delivered using emergent technologies and social media. The use of culturally and gender concordant CHEs working with CRAs have the potential to increase awareness and accruals to cancer clinical trials.