Building community capacity through use of peer-interviewers in community-based participatory research: Advantages and lessons learned

Homecare workers who provide personal care and housekeeping services to the elderly, disabled or ill constitute one of the fastest growing occupations, currently about 1,500,000 workers. It is a low wage job and is about 50% minority, Hispanic and/or immigrant workers. Partnership for Safety is a 5-year community-based participatory intervention project to improve the safety and health of homecare workers in Alameda County California by developing simple and accessible educational intervention materials. Previous presentations reported on the formative research process for developing the materials including a Homecare Workers Handbook. This presentation will describe the role of worker and client peer mentors in field testing the prototype Handbook. Twelve peer mentors (8 workers and 4 clients) conducted a total of 43 semi-structured interviews in 3 languages with workers and/or clients. Popular education techniques were used to train peer mentors in interviewing techniques. Hand-held digital recorders and a written data collection form were used. This activity contributed positively to the leadership development of peer mentors and provided useful feedback on the prototype. However, several lessons were learned to improve the performance of peer-interviewers for future projects. They include: 1) capturing feedback in written notes was difficult and the backup digital recordings were easy to operate and essential, 2) use of follow up probes was challenging and limited the utility and specificity of some responses, underscoring the need for even more extensive training and role-playing, 3) keeping the interview script short is important so that both the interviewers and respondents remain fully engaged.