GiveBetter x Los Angeles

Vital Access Care Foundation (Vietnamese American Cancer Foundation)

Community health access, cancer navigation and hepatitis screening

Research time: 8 min on GPT-6 Astra Light
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.

Updated: 2026-09-14

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Summary

What do they do? VACF provides culturally accessible health education, screening, navigation and support, primarily in Orange County. Its current legal name is Vital Access Care Foundation, reflecting a wider portfolio than cancer alone. The numerical scenario prices only a hepatitis-care component against all recipient expenses, not the return from its entire portfolio.

Why we’re interested in this organization:

  • Original organization-linked research documents a high hepatitis B burden in its historical screening population.

  • Language-access navigation offers a concrete route from testing to care for underserved residents.

  • Original accounts and current program descriptions establish a real, expanding recipient rather than an isolated screening campaign.

Our main reservations:

  • The current screening mix, unique HBV participants and completed-care cascade are not published.

  • The central estimate is a conditional partial-health scenario; most portfolio benefits remain unpriced.

  • Large recent surpluses and unrestricted reserves weaken the case that the next ordinary gift immediately expands services.

What do you get for your dollar? $18.3M per better life: ten additional quality-adjusted life years in Los Angeles. Conditional partial-health estimate; other organizational outcomes remain unpriced..

Central 624.75 candidate HBV activities, 499.8 unique appropriate opportunities, 249.9 incremental opportunities before funding, 62.475 funding-responsive opportunities and 15.61875 reference-program-equivalent offers. These fractional expected quantities are model constructs, not observed diagnoses, cures or beneficiaries.

1. What do they do?

The current program portfolio includes cancer screening and support, public-benefit navigation, food assistance, research participation and community workforce development. The organization describes an Orange County service focus, not an LA-city-only service. Its legal name in the original 2024 return is Vital Access Care Foundation, with Vietnamese American Cancer Foundation in its mission description.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

The 2024 return reports 2,499 combined screenings/vaccinations and 282 cancer patients assisted; these are outputs, not lives saved. The current website's 2025 impact heading links an image whose filename still says 2024; the image shows 3,750 screening/prevention activities. We use the dated return cohort, not that ambiguously labeled image, for numerical scale. VACF's 2019 HBV study found 225 current infections among 2,508 participants but explicitly lacked information on completed necessary care. Improved monitoring would publish unique tests by disease, prior diagnosis, confirmatory results, referral completion and treatment/vaccination outcomes.

3. Qualitative assessment

The historical local study documents bilingual education, mailed results and linkage efforts, supporting a plausible access mechanism. Its cross-sectional prevalence is not a causal treatment effect. The HBV economic model supplies a disease-progression bridge, not a VACF evaluation. We heavily reduce its applicability to older clients and unknown follow-through. Cancer support, food security, caregiver capacity and research may matter substantially but are not assigned arbitrary QALYs.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

Whole-recipient 2024 Form 990 expenses were $2,205,208: $2,153,424 program, $49,846 management and $1,938 fundraising. Part VIII reports no separately netted fundraising expenses. Comparable Part IX expenses were $1,349,832 in 2023 and $1,038,000 in 2022 (confirmed directly in the original 2022 return, whose Part VIII reports zero event costs and no gaming, rental or inventory costs to restore); the three-year mean is $1,531,013.33. The central conditional hepatitis component is about $18.35 million per 10 LA-MSA QALYs, with deliberately wide positive scenarios and a zero-benefit case. This is not a complete portfolio ranking. Clinical treatment costs paid by insurers or partners are outside the donor-cost numerator.

Model, assumptions and sensitivity

Full recipient annual 2024 Part IX expense, all programs/overhead; no selected-program denominator. Output denominator prices only HBV screening/care contribution. External clinical costs excluded and discussed separately.

LA MSA comprises Los Angeles and Orange counties. Historical study events were in both and current service focus is Orange County. g=.95 is judgment allowing nonresident beneficiaries, range .9–1, not measured residence share. National research spillovers are unpriced.

Q_all=N*s*d*a*b*t*q_ref; Q_LA=g*Q_all; price=10*C/Q_LA. N=2499 mixed screening/vaccination activities; s=.25 HBV-related screening opportunities; d=.8 unique appropriate people; a=.5 incremental versus other care; b=.25 ordinary-funding responsiveness; t=.25 age/cascade transfer; q_ref=23.861−23.780=.081 discounted lifetime QALY per API screening-program offer from Chahal et al. Central Q_all=1.26511875 and Q_LA=1.2018628125. One annual-budget cohort only; never repeat lifetime benefit each year.

C
2205208 USD/year (observed). Original full recipient expense. [vacf-99024]
N
2499 mixed screening/vaccination activities/year (observed). Return does not split diseases or vaccines. [vacf-99024]
s
0.25 HBV opportunity fraction (judgment). Hepatitis is established but current share unknown; .1–.5 scenarios. [vacf-programs]
d
0.8 unique appropriate fraction (judgment). Historical study had to remove duplicate participants; current dedup unknown. [vacf-hbv]
a
0.5 incremental-care fraction (judgment). Other medical care, prior diagnoses and contemporary screening reduce additionality. [cdc-hbv]
b
0.25 ordinary-funding responsiveness (judgment). Substantial surplus/reserves; no verified immediate cash bottleneck. [vacf-99024]
t
0.25 reference transfer factor (judgment). Reference starts age 30; VACF serves many older residents and lacks completion follow-up. [hbv-model]
q_ref
0.081 discounted lifetime QALY/program offer (observed). Published modeled (not empirical) API inclusive 23.861 minus no intervention 23.780; includes imperfect uptake, avoids inflating per actual test. [hbv-model]
g
0.95 LA+Orange beneficiary share (judgment). Local service focus with nonresident allowance; not office-location allocation. [vacf-about]

Conditional HBV component; not portfolio return: Cost: $2.2M; Los Angeles QALYs: 1.2018628125; all-population QALYs: 1.26511875. s=0.25; d=0.8; a=0.5; b=0.25; t=0.25; g=0.95; q_ref=.081. All conversion factors subjective.

low component scenario: Cost: $2.2M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0.022772137500000005; all-population QALYs: 0.025302375000000005. s=0.1; d=0.5; a=0.25; b=0.1; t=0.1; g=0.9; q_ref=.081. All conversion factors subjective.

high component scenario: Cost: $2.2M; Los Angeles QALYs: 27.041913281249997; all-population QALYs: 27.041913281249997. s=0.5; d=0.95; a=0.75; b=0.5; t=0.75; g=1; q_ref=.081. All conversion factors subjective.

zero component scenario: Cost: $2.2M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0; all-population QALYs: 0. s=0.25; d=0.8; a=0.5; b=0; t=0.25; g=0.95; q_ref=.081. All conversion factors subjective.

Counterfactual: Without additional ordinary funding, existing grants/reserves and public/clinical providers continue. a removes HBV care that would occur anyway; b removes non-marginal funding or displacement. The reference model's no-intervention comparator is more favorable than contemporary care, so it is not copied directly.

Attribution: s and d translate mixed reported outputs to candidate clinical opportunities; no multiplying 9% prevalence into a reference model that already includes infection prevalence. t is a joint transfer discount for older case mix and less complete care than reference; not an empirically calibrated completion probability. No independent cancer/food/navigation additions that could double-count the same people.

All organization-specific conversion factors are explicit subjective scenarios, not measured rates or confidence intervals. Partial component only. Low/high combine assumptions rather than statistical bounds; zero and small adverse effects remain possible.

Sensitivity

  • Positive low/high prices span about $968.38m to $815,478 per 10 LA QALYs; zero incremental funding or completed care makes price nonfinite.
  • At $1m/10, full annual cost needs 22.05208 LA QALYs; at $100k/10 it needs 220.5208. Central component supplies 1.20186, so unpriced benefits or better conversion would have to close a large gap.
  • q_ref embeds finite survival, disease recurrence/progression, treatment discontinuation and 3% annual discount in the source model. It is not 0.081 QALYs per year and receives no extra lifetime multiplier.
  • A societal-cost sensitivity must add actual incremental antiviral/vaccine/monitoring resources, not copy the source's outdated $798/month branded tenofovir cost. No current payer cost is estimated here.
  • Using all 3,750 ambiguously year-labeled website activities as 2025 outputs would raise scale 50%, but cannot establish HBV mix or 2025 costs; not the central case.

Unresolved inputs

  • Current unique HBV triple-panel tests, excluding repeat tests and other diseases/vaccines.
  • HBV treatment eligibility, newly identified proportion, completed linkage, treatment retention and vaccination series completion, compared with otherwise available care.
  • Age-specific clinical trajectories and residence of beneficiaries.
  • Budget-linked marginal expansion plan and reserve commitments.
  • Quantified causal benefits of the larger non-HBV portfolio; the component is not an estimate of their absence.

5. Funding and previous grants

The 2024 return reports revenue of $3,252,848, a $1,047,640 surplus, $4,035,365 cash and $4,049,616 net assets without donor restrictions. Government grants are blank in Part VIII, which does not prove absence of publicly supported partner care. The program page explicitly connects patients to Every Woman Counts and other assistance. An ordinary gift may support the entire expanded portfolio or reserves; no verified cash-only service queue was found. Funding responsiveness is therefore a judgment, not an observed grant-to-treatment conversion.

Annual expenses

Organization-level spending, including programs, administration and fundraising. The research list averages three comparable, consecutive full fiscal years when available.

  • FY 2022: $1.0M; Vital Access Care Foundation, EIN 91-2170415, 12-month period, Original Form 990 Part IX total plus any separately netted event, gaming, rental and inventory costs; asset disposal losses are excluded from operating expenses.. Source
  • FY 2023: $1.3M; Vital Access Care Foundation, EIN 91-2170415, 12-month period, Original Form 990 Part IX total plus any separately netted event, gaming, rental and inventory costs; asset disposal losses are excluded from operating expenses.. Source
  • FY 2024: $2.2M; Vital Access Care Foundation, EIN 91-2170415, 12-month period, Original Form 990 Part IX total plus any separately netted event, gaming, rental and inventory costs; asset disposal losses are excluded from operating expenses.. Source

6. Sources

  1. Original 2024 Form 990. Vital Access Care Foundation / IRS; ProPublica host. Published: 2025-11-17; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  2. Original 2023 Form 990. Vital Access Care Foundation / IRS; ProPublica host. Published: 2024-11-13; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  3. About and impact graphic. VACF. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  4. Programs and services. VACF. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  5. VACF community HBV screening study. Lee et al., BMJ Open. Published: 2019-08-26; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  6. VACF HCV community screening study. Lee et al., PLOS ONE. Published: 2022-09-27; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  7. HBV screening, treatment and vaccination economic model. Chahal et al., Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Published: 2018-12-26; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  8. CDC 2023 HBV screening recommendations. CDC. Published: 2023-03-10; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  9. Original 2022 Form 990. Vital Access Care Foundation / IRS; ProPublica host. Published: 2023-11-15; retrieved: 2026-09-14.