Community health workers educate at-risk hispanic residents on cancer prevention globally and locally

ÉPICO: Education to Promote Improved Cancer Outcomes is a tailored training program on prevention/early detection for colorectal, breast and cervical cancers among at-risk Hispanic residents. The project was a cancer education intervention that was cross-sectional, non-experimental, and utilized a pre-test-post-test design. The study setting and population were adult residents living in colonias located along the South Texas-Mexico border. The specific aims ÉPICO included: 1) equip CHWs to educate residents on prevention for colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers; 2) enable CHWs to use tailoring strategies to improve outreach efforts; and 3) increase residents' prevention behaviors. Project activities included: 1) project CHWs completed a CHW instructor course; 2) CHWs trained in focus group moderation; 3) CHWs conducted focus groups to inform module development; 4) developed bilingual modules; 5) pilot tested trainings and revised modules; 6) conducted training sessions; and 7) CHWs implemented tailoring-based training in their outreach activities and administered evaluation tools. Six CHWs became certified instructors, who then played a key role in developing and delivering the cancer modules. Over 3,400 CEUs were provided May 2012-April 2013 to CHWs who educated an estimated 5,000 residents through their daily outreach activities. Analyses will be conducted using STATA, and we will report on descriptive statistics, odds ratios, and t-tests. An unexpected phenomenon that occurred in the project, described qualitatively, was the extension of the education modules to residents across the U.S. border—impacting communities both locally and globally.