MADISON, Wis., Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Some immigrants in the United States may need more than translations to grasp what is involved in cancer treatment, researchers found.
Tracy Schroepfer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said cancer educators may find it difficult to explain cancer detection and prevention to people who may not even have a word for cancer.
This was the case in the Hmong population -- members of a hill tribe in Laos that emigrated to the United States after the Vietnam war and number about 60,000 in Wisconsin today.
"Medical interventions fail if the intervention does not match the community's level of readiness to address the issue," Schroepfer said in a statement. "Hmong community members need to be the educators. They understand the belief system and can talk to people about it, reframe the experience of cancer". UPI
