Trial Information

Health and Cancer Issues in the South Asian Community

If you agree to take part in this study, you will be either be interviewed or participate in
a focus group.

For both the interview and the focus group, you will be asked to complete a form that asks
questions about your ethnicity, gender, date and place of birth, education level, marital
status, native language or language proficiency (your ability to speak different languages),
years in the US, and the number of adults and children living in your household. It should
take about 10 minutes to complete. You will not be asked to state any of this information
aloud in the focus group.

If you are interviewed, you will be asked questions about your personal health and health
history, your health practices, including your eating and physical activity habits, health
knowledge, and where and how you receive health services and health education.

If you are assigned to a focus group, you will participate in one of 4-8 "focus"
(discussion) groups. Each group will have 8-10 participants. A trained focus group
moderator will also attend the session, as well as at least 1 member of the research staff.
Some groups may have only males. The other groups may have only females.

The moderator may ask you to use your first name with the group. He/she will ask your focus
group a series of questions for discussion. As a group, you will be asked to discuss your
comments, opinions, and observations. The questions and discussion will relate to your
health practices; your knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about health; your sources of
information about health; and any barriers (difficulties) you may have experienced when
accessing health care services.

Focus group participants will also be given a draft of a health survey for South Asian
Americans that is being developed by researchers. After reading the survey, you will be
asked to provide feedback about the cultural relevance and appropriateness of the questions
on the survey. In other words, you will discuss whether the questions seem to apply well to
the South Asian American community. Researchers are also interested in hearing your
feedback about how best to recruit South Asian Americans to complete the health survey.

The interviews will last about 30-40 minutes. Each focus group session will last about 2
hours. The interview and the focus group may be audiotaped so that the participants'
responses may be written out and then studied by researchers.

After the interview or focus group session, your participation in this study will be over.

This is an investigational study. Up to 150 individuals will participate in this study.
All will be enrolled at M. D. Anderson.