Improving Vietnamese Immigrants’ Cognitive Health Literacy Through University–Community Partnerships

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, waves of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants migrated to the United States. Currently, 2.3 million Vietnamese live in the United States. Many arrived with adverse conditions; however, their health data is scarce. After 50 years, many are aged and may have unmet health needs. To fill this gap, we developed the Vietnamese Aging and Care Survey (VACS) and collected their comprehensive health data in Houston, Texas (N = 402). It revealed a high prevalence of physical, mental, and cognitive disabilities. Using the university-community partnerships, we developed a linguistically and culturally tailored dementia one-pager, formed the Cognitive Health Initiative (CHAIN), and offered complimentary memory tests to monolingual Vietnamese refugees and immigrants. This study reported how CHAIN has operated for the past 2 years. Using the Cultural Exchange Model, we trained bilingual/bicultural Vietnamese university students (Cohort 1) and conducted cognitive assessments, the Vietnamese Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-V), in 2023. In 2024, when Cohort 2 students joined, we formed mentor (Cohort 1)-mentee (Cohort 2) dyads. Cohort 1 demonstrated the assessment, whereas Cohort 2 observed their mentors perform assessments. After several demonstrations, Cohort 2 tried the assessments supervised by Cohort 1. They repeated this sequence until Cohort 2 felt comfortable conducting the assessments independently. During 2023-2024, we recruited 52 students, attended 16 Vietnamese health fairs, and offered 406 MoCA-V assessments. Through the mentor-mentee relationships, CHAIN promoted teamwork, accountability, ethics, and responsibility to the community and demonstrated successful university-community partnerships.