A fall prevention curriculum for community health workers: Bridging the information gap

Background: Despite known risk factors for falling and a variety of existing approaches to address fall-related risk , there is an urgent need to identify more effective public health strategies to combat falls and associated injury among older adults. The Policies, Programs, and Partners for Fall Prevention (PPPFP) study incorporates multi-level intervention approaches to address fall prevention using a variety of dissemination research methodologies.

Methods: This presentation emphasizes the training of community health workers (CHWs) to bridge the information gap to older adults regarding falls prevention. Utilizing best practice models for training CHWs, adult learning theory, and message tailoring, the PPPFP study team developed a CHW curriculum (offered online and face-to-face) about fall prevention. CHWs who receive the training use the information to connect at-risk seniors to needed medical services and evidence-based community fall prevention programs.

Results: A survey of Texas Department of State Health Services-certified CEU modules and a national scan of CHW curricula indicated no fall prevention modules for CHWs—resulting in the development and implementation of a CHW curriculum about fall prevention utilizing message tailoring. This curriculum is utilized in Texas and North Carolina and includes three modules: importance of fall prevention and risk factors for falls (4 CEUs); enhancing CHWs' skills to address fall-related risk factors (4 CEUs); and health behavior change strategies to prevent falls (2 CEUs).

Conclusion: This CHW-tailored curriculum has vast implications to reach larger proportions of high-risk seniors outside of healthcare settings through message tailoring.