Efficacy of a language‐concordant community health worker intervention to improve community‐to‐clinic linkage for dementia care: results of the randomized trial PLAN

BACKGROUND: Linkage to medical services enables timely diagnosis and treatment, yet racial/ethnic minority older adults with limited English proficiency (LEP) face substantial barriers. We tested Preparing Healthy Aging through Dementia Literacy Education and Navigation (PLAN), a language-concordant community health worker (CHW)-led intervention, to improve dementia linkage among Korean American (KA) older adults with undiagnosed probable dementia and to assess caregiver outcomes. METHODS: In a community-based randomized trial, 287 older adult-caregiver dyads were followed for 6 months. Trained Korean-speaking CHWs delivered a 1-h dementia literacy education session plus phone navigation. The primary outcome was linkage to medical services, verified through clinic documentation. Secondary outcomes included caregiver psychosocial measures. RESULTS: PLAN increased linkage to medical services versus control (16.7% vs 0%, chi-squared [df = 1] = 24.05, p < 0.001). Caregiver outcomes were largely unchanged, with self-efficacy favoring control. DISCUSSION: This language-concordant CHW model achieved verified community-to-clinic linkage at 6 months. Longer follow-up and testing across diverse LEP communities are needed to assess diagnosis, treatment initiation, and caregiver trajectories.