KIM-CHI, a research project created by UCLA Associate Professor Eunice Lee, aims to educate Korean immigrants about mammography screenings
By Alex Chen
Feb. 14, 2011 3:45 a.m.
To promote a more healthy lifestyle, Eunice Lee is introducing Korean Americans to KIM–CHI.
The UCLA associate professor at the School of Nursing is not referring to the popular Korean dish of fermented vegetables. Instead, Lee uses its namesake to address the significantly low rate of breast cancer screening among Korean women.
Presented to the Oncology Nursing Society last Thursday and titled KIM–CHI, Lee’s research project, which stands for Korean Immigrants & Mammography: Culture-Specific Health Intervention, hopes to increase mammography screenings among Korean immigrants.
“The mammographic screening rate (for Korean women) has been increasing dramatically over the past decade, but still the rates are lower than for American women,” said Lee, a Korean immigrant.
By creating an acronym for the staple that is eaten almost every day in Korea, Lee said she hopes to encourage consistent mammograms every year for Korean families such as Shijun Sung’s, whose family discovered the importance of preventative screening several years ago.
After emigrating from South Korea to Sacramento in 2003, Sung, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, had a scare several years ago when doctors discovered a suspicious tumor during his mother’s first mammogram.
“She told me that her doctor recommended her to get a physical, and I think it was the first physical that she got here,” Sung said.
Through an informational program focused on educating Korean Americans about the misconceptions and benefits of preventative screenings, Lee said she hopes to break down the cultural and informational barriers that have historically contributed to this dilemma.
The first is the reluctance to pursue preventative medicine, Lee said.
“Many Koreans tend to believe as long as they do not have anybody in their family with breast cancer, they will not get it themselves, and as long as they do not have symptoms, they do not need a screening,” she said.
Korean women also often prioritize the care of their family members over themselves because of their busy schedules as immigrants. Thus, they choose to forgo preventative care in favor of reactionary care.
In addition, many Koreans are plagued by a lack of familiarity with the U.S. health care system, and many do not have a primary physician, Lee said.
Many also lack the insurance. At least 30 percent of Korean Americans, including Korean immigrants, lack health insurance, said Kyeyoung Park, associate professor of anthropology at UCLA and a Korean immigrant.
“In Korea, there is a national universal health plan. So (many immigrants) do not know that this is not offered in the U.S.,” Park said.
“They do not have good information ““ they are misinformed and hoping there might be a universal health insurance plan here.”
Adapting to the foreign health care system also presented a major difficulty for the Sung family.
“Even though we had health insurance, we never had a primary doctor,” Sung said, adding that he still does not have a main doctor.
“I don’t think most Korean families understand the concept of the primary doctor because usually back in Korea if you are sick you go to the hospital, if you need a physical you just go to the hospital.”
Moreover, the Sung family adhered to the same reluctance toward the style of preventative medicine that Lee discussed.
“The mentality was if you’re not sick, then why do you go to the hospital?” Sung said. “Why would we bother to pay another $400 to $1,000 for a full physical exam when you’re not sick?”
Eventually, doctors determined that the tumor in Sung’s mother was benign. But the underlying barriers among the Korean community continue.
“Immigrant understanding of how the U.S. health care works, let alone having the health insurance, is preventing them from getting the mammograms,” Sung said.
As part of Lee’s research, she has been studying the effects of an informational DVD to educate couples about the importance of breast cancer screenings.
As part of one of the most recent immigrant communities in the U.S., Park said health care providers must focus on the language, cultural and informational barriers.
“We need similar kinds of interventions and programs to educate Korean Americans like how we do other Americans,” she said.
