First community health worker certification of its kind serves Chinese Americans in Texas

Health behavior experts from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health have spearheaded the first certification program for community health workers in Texas that focuses on cancer prevention among the state’s Chinese American population through the use of their family histories.

Since its introduction in 2022, the 160-hour Mandarin-language certification program has trained more than 100 Chinese American community health workers who have served about 1,500 Chinese Americans in Texas.

Prior to this, only 11 of the state’s nearly 4,000 certified community health workers were Chinese Americans.

“Combining a community health approach with family histories has been found to reduce cancer in Hispanic and Black communities in the United States, and major health care organizations like the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urge public health practitioners to adopt it,” said Lei-Shih “Lace” Chen, PhD, who led the effort.

In addition, she notes that cancer is the top cause of death for Chinese Americans, and Texas has the nation’s third-largest Chinese American population. Compounding the issue is that 62% of the nation’s Chinese Americans are immigrants, and a substantial minority of the total—43%—have limited fluency in English.

Chen, along with Texas A&M graduate students Zihan Zhang and Denise Martinez and post-doctoral associate Yu-Lyu Yeh, developed the program, which was launched in 2018 through funding from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Their findings to date were summarized in the American Journal of Public Health.

The certification process includes a 160-hour online training course; course assignments; 12-hour, supervised internships; 30-minute weekly mentoring sessions; and an eight-hour, in-person group workshop.

These programs are overseen in part by an advisory board of administrators from state-certified community health worker training centers, leaders from Chinese American community organizations and researchers with expertise in Chinese American health.

Overall, trainees reported that the online training achieved the learning objectives well or extremely well. Ninety-five percent or more reported that they were satisfied with the content, structure, duration and difficulty level of the training videos, handouts and other materials.

“Community health workers are the link between health care systems and their communities, and through this program, they could help serve more Chinese Americans in Texas,” Chen said.