Qualitative Results
Acceptability
The project CHW shared participants’ cultural backgrounds and language, and leveraged her knowledge of community resources and networks, such as churches and English language programs to increase outreach efforts and study relevance and acceptability.
The CHW expressed that ‘‘being from the same culture helps overcome resistance,’’ but more importantly, ‘‘being a native Korean speaker is key’’ to help overcome language barriers for this largely limited English proficient community.
Prior to project implementation, some key community informants expressed concern that participants may question a CHW’s role and qualifications to provide health information and lead the intervention compared to a clinician.
The CHW, however, did not find this to be true; rather, she believed that ‘‘People trusted [her] as the person in charge.’’
In addition, the CHW’s connection to and training at an academic medical school facilitated trust with participants.
Both the CHW and participants spoke about their relationship in warm, familial terms.
For example, the CHW expressed ‘‘respect’’ for program participants, many of whom were older adults, and that she tried ‘‘to treat them as [her] grandparents.’’
She referred to participants as ‘‘sun seng nim,’’ a formal term of respect which translates to ‘‘teacher’’ in Korean language.
Participants expressed that they felt cared for: ‘‘Not even my kids check up on me like that so I was very appreciative of her calling and taking care of