10 Steps to Better Healthcare: A Guide for Chinese-American Seniors

Project Summary

The ten project videos produced during the New Routes initiative help Chinese American seniors overcome cultural, language, and navigational barriers so they may communicate effectively with their adult children caretakers and health care providers. The media was designed to help them navigate the U.S. health care system. Each video focuses on a health topic of keen interest to seniors and provides them clear background information and step-by-step instruction.

Project Snapshot: Alex Li, MD and Yvonne Li, MD

Dr. Alex Li was working on the cancer screening video and so was his mother, Dr. Yvonne Li, who was to speak from her perspective as an oncologist. The video became unexpectedly personal, as Alex Li reported in the project impact video.

“During this project, my mom and my dad were diagnosed with cancer,” he said. “She spoke from both her heart and from her professional perspective. So, it was a very powerful video for me.”

Throughout all of the programs, Chinese seniors and health care providers speak in Chinese of their own experiences so those watching can relate to what they see and hear. Physicians and other experts provide on-screen direction and expertise and Ursula Huang, a well-known news anchor, provides a narrative framework for each program.

The programs were broadcast on LA-18, a television station broadcasting in multiple Asian languages and distributed via the internet. A stand-alone project website makes finding the videos online easy. 25,000 DVDs will be distributed through community partners in L.A. and others in San Francisco, Oakland, and New York.

Visit the 10 Steps web site >>

Insights

Encountering filming restrictions at UCLA, the director Ming Lo took the filming to other Chinese community and health care settings which led to the unexpected benefit of making the project more community-oriented.

The first-person story telling coupled with practical instruction from credible sources made the videos very well suited to the Chinese elders audience they wished to reach. From a manager of community health initiatives at the California chapter of the American Cancer Society came this quote: “[T]eam members saw the video and they had only great things to say about it: great information and format can be used for other ethnic groups, very professional, loved the story telling [and] real life information.”

L.A. Care is a public health plan organization that became the fiscal administrator and monitor for Chinese Seniors after another organzation didn't work out. Since most Chinese seniors have public insurance, its expertise in reaching out to the community made the project even more successful. L.A. Care also provided content and media resources for the production and distribution of the ten videos.