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

Abstract #107289

Gladys Gonzalez-Ramos, PhD, School of Social Work, New York University, 1 Washington Square North, New York, NY 10003, 212-260-8435, gmg1@nyu.edu, Ruth A. Hagestuen, RN, MA, Director of Field Services, National Parkinson Foundation, Inc., 1501 N.W.9th Avenue, Bob Hope Road, MIami, FL 33136, and Elaine V. Cohen, PhD, Independent Research Consultant, 142 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10023.

As a way to address existing health disparities across various Centers of Excellence of the National Parkinson Foundation, a model interdisciplinary team training program was developed three years ago. This national educational program has been funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to design, implement and evaluate a specialty training for allied health professionals to provide interdisciplinary team care to persons affected by Parkinson disease, living in medically underserved areas of the U.S. The 4 1/2 day intensive training has been completed at eight different urban and rural sites in diverse regions of the country and has trained over 315 professionals including 45 teams. The training brings together physical therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, speech-language pathologists and music therapists, particularly those of diverse minority background and/or those working with medically underserved elderly. Cross-discipline and cultural competence training is stressed, as well as the use of panels of persons and caregivers affected by Parkinson. Extensive pre-post evaluations have been done, including the use of control groups. The model has proven to be very effective and has wide applicability to other chronic disease states. In this presentation, we will describe this educational model which helps to address health disparities, and also provide participants with tools to allow them to initiate their own educational efforts for professionals. We will describe the challenges to training professionals in culturally-competent practice, in team building, of recruitement of professionals in rural settings and the educational strategies learned from this model.

Learning Objectives:

• 1--Articulate strategies for developing a team training program for allied health professionals working with chronically-ill elderly.
• 2--Describe methods for training professionals for culturally-competent practice.
• 3--Identify challenges in delivering professional training in medically underserved areas in the U.S. and identify ways to handle challenges.

Keywords: Chronic Diseases, Professional Development

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.