TY - JOUR
T1 - Hepatitis B Virus Awareness, Infection, and Screening Multiethnic Community Intervention for Foreign-Born Populations
AU - Raines-Milenkov, Amy
AU - Felini, Martha
AU - Baker, Eva
AU - Acharya, Rushil
AU - Longanga Diese, Elvis
AU - Akpan, Idara
AU - Hussain, Arbaz
AU - Wagner, Teresa
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), Evidence-Based Cancer Prevention Services, PP170012 and PP130074 (ARM). https://www.cprit.state.tx.us . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a potentially deadly viral infection that can lead to liver cancer. Many refugee immigrants resettled in the US come from countries known to have a high prevalence of HBV infections. Unfortunately, most infected refugee immigrants are unaware of their HBV status. The disease is highly preventable through a vaccine, but chronic HBV is incurable once the disease has developed. For the purposes of this cross-sectional study, we conducted analysis of data collected through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) to assess HBV awareness, vaccination status, screening, and infection among multiethnic, primarily refugee, immigrant populations living in North Texas. Overall, 74% of study participants reported having heard about HBV, but only 31% knew their HBV status. Whereas 69% of study participants lacked awareness about their HBV status and self-reported prevalence of chronic HBV among study participants was 4%. For the vaccine, only 26% reported to have received at least one dose; 53% did not know, while 21% had not ever received it. For those unaware of their HBV status, the BBI offered participants free HBV screening and assistance for vaccination as needed. 76% of participants that accepted HBV screening from BBI were never screened before (enrollment in BBI). Chronic HBV positivity rate for participants was 6%, which is twenty times higher than the national prevalence of chronic HBV (0.3%). High prevalence of HBV, low awareness and low vaccination rates seen in this study highlights the need for increased HBV prevention among foreign born populations.
AB - Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a potentially deadly viral infection that can lead to liver cancer. Many refugee immigrants resettled in the US come from countries known to have a high prevalence of HBV infections. Unfortunately, most infected refugee immigrants are unaware of their HBV status. The disease is highly preventable through a vaccine, but chronic HBV is incurable once the disease has developed. For the purposes of this cross-sectional study, we conducted analysis of data collected through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) to assess HBV awareness, vaccination status, screening, and infection among multiethnic, primarily refugee, immigrant populations living in North Texas. Overall, 74% of study participants reported having heard about HBV, but only 31% knew their HBV status. Whereas 69% of study participants lacked awareness about their HBV status and self-reported prevalence of chronic HBV among study participants was 4%. For the vaccine, only 26% reported to have received at least one dose; 53% did not know, while 21% had not ever received it. For those unaware of their HBV status, the BBI offered participants free HBV screening and assistance for vaccination as needed. 76% of participants that accepted HBV screening from BBI were never screened before (enrollment in BBI). Chronic HBV positivity rate for participants was 6%, which is twenty times higher than the national prevalence of chronic HBV (0.3%). High prevalence of HBV, low awareness and low vaccination rates seen in this study highlights the need for increased HBV prevention among foreign born populations.
KW - Awareness
KW - HBV
KW - Hepatitis B
KW - Immigrants
KW - Refugees
KW - Screening
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103415075&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10900-021-00982-5
DO - 10.1007/s10900-021-00982-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 33772683
AN - SCOPUS:85103415075
SN - 0094-5145
VL - 46
SP - 967
EP - 974
JO - Journal of Community Health
JF - Journal of Community Health
IS - 5
ER -