Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103833

Gloria Palmisano, BS, MA¹, Michael Spencer, PhD², Jillian Memeo², and Michael Anderson³. (1) REACH Detroit Partnership, Community Health & Social Services Center, Inc., One Ford Place, Suite 1-B, Detroit, MI 48202, (313) 874-7131, gpalmisano@chasscenter.org, (2) School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106, (3) Community Health & Social Services Center, Inc., REACH Detroit Partnership, 1 Ford Place, Suite 1B, Detroit, MI 48202

REACH Detroit Partnership provides inter-related family, health system, social support, and community interventions to reduce disparities in diabetes among African-Americans and Latinos in eastside and southwest Detroit. REACH Detroit Family Health Advocates (FHAs) recently completed a two-year, healthy lifestyle and diabetes self-management intervention with participants. FHAs are trained community health workers who collaborate with clients to increase client knowledge and skills to improve diabetes self-management and clinical outcomes. Intervention outcomes show positive behavioral and clinical changes from baseline to 12 months. However, it is equally important to determine the quality of FHA-client interactions and processes of care from the clients' perspective. This study reports the results of a client survey that evaluated intervention fidelity and client satisfaction. A 20 minute phone survey was administered to a sample of 68 clients in either English or Spanish. Data were collected on FHA accountability, FHA-client relationships, and FHA satisfaction. Survey results demonstrate a high level of fidelity and suggest FHA services were effective in promoting positive health behaviors. Clients attribute success in establishing a healthier lifestyle to the diabetes education, healthy eating information, support/motivation, and continuous communication they received from their FHA. Client recommendations for improving services were more contact with FHA, a longer intervention period, and more exercise classes. Our findings suggest that clients viewed FHA services as high in quality and an important factor in achieving positive changes in health behavior. Recommendations will be used to refine our current intervention to increase its quality and satisfaction.

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will be able to

• Articulate how we used a phone survey to assess the fidelity of our FHA intervention;
• Describe the results of the survey; 3)discuss the implications and generalizability of our results for similar interventions.

Keywords: Evaluation, Community Health Promoters

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.