Dear Editor,
I read with great interest the article by Sripipatana et al1 titled, “Exploring racial/ethnic disparities in hypertension care among patients served by health centers in the United States.” The study examined a nationally representative sample of Health Resources and Services Administration‐funded health center patients with hypertension. While the authors found a lower likelihood of high blood pressure at last visit among Asian Americans, they also stated that “Asian American patients were less likely to report being told by a provider they had high blood pressure at their last visit.” The study concluded that “delivering care in an equitable manner within the four walls of a clinical setting is not enough.” For Asian Americans, social media and the Internet may be an effective channel to facilitate timely access to culturally competent educational programs.
A recent study utilized a Facebook campaign to raise knowledge on hypertension in the Chinese American community.2 The study found the click‐through rates for younger (45‐54 years) and older (65 years or older) Chinese Americans to be 4% and 15%, respectively. The study highlighted a Facebook campaign could be useful in outreaching to older adults residing in different Chinese communities among United States. In line with previous studies,3, 4, 5 social media could be useful in outreaching Chinese American older adults with culturally competent preventive health and educational programs.
Another study examined the practicality of Facebook advertisements at sharing hypertension knowledge with Chinese American immigrants.6 The advertisement generated a click‐through rate of 10% from a total of 508 viewers, resulting in an average duration of 5 minutes watched of the 14‐minute Chinese language education video on hypertension. The study concluded that Facebook can be an effective tool in disseminating hypertension education. In line with other studies,7, 8, 9, 10 social media could facilitate access to timely and appropriate health educational programs toward Chinese‐speaking Asian Americans. Taken together, social media could be part of the solutions to further provide quality care to address chronic health conditions, like hypertension, among older Chinese‐speaking Asian Americans.
CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
The authors report no specific funding in relation to this research and no conflicts of interest to disclose.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION
Benjamin Woo analyzed the original article and data and draft the manuscript.
REFERENCES
- 1. Sripipatana A, Pourat N, Chen X, et al. Exploring racial/ethnic disparities in hypertension care among patients served by health centers in the United States. J Clin Hypertens. 2019;21:489‐498. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2. Dunn PH, Woo BK. Facebook advertising for disseminating hypertension knowledge to older Chinese adults. J Hypertens. 2018;36(4):962. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3. Lam NH, Woo BK. Digital media recruitment for fall prevention among older Chinese‐American individuals: observational, cross‐sectional study. JMIR Aging. 2018;1(2):e11772. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 4. Cheng T, Liu L, Woo BK. Analyzing twitter as a platform for Alzheimer‐related dementia awareness: Thematic analyses of tweets. JMIR Aging. 2018;1(2):e11542. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 5. Woo BK. Dementia health promotion for Chinese Americans. Cureus. 2017;9(6):e1411. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 6. Dunn PH, Woo BK. Facebook recruitment of Chinese‐speaking participants for hypertension education. J Am Soc Hypertens. 2018;12(9):690‐692. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 7. Zheng X, Woo BK. E‐mental health in ethnic minority: a comparison of YouTube and talk‐based educational workshops in dementia. Asian J Psychiatr. 2017;25:246‐248. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 8. Woo BK. Facebook advertising for disseminating early psychosis education to the Chinese‐speaking general public. Health Equity. 2019;3(1):19‐21. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 9. Lam NH, Tsiang JT, Woo BK. Exploring the role of youtube in disseminating psychoeducation. Acad Psychiatry. 2017;41(6):819‐822. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 10. Lam NH, Woo BK. Exploring the role of YouTube in delivering dementia education to older Chinese. Asian J Psychiatr. 2018;31:25‐26. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]