House Parties: An Innovative Model for Outreach and Community-Based Health Education
- PDF / 802,829 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 8 Downloads / 155 Views
House Parties: An Innovative Model for Outreach and CommunityBased Health Education Timika Anderson‑Reeves1 · Jacqueline Goodman1 · Brian Bragg1 · Chelsey Leruth1 Published online: 22 November 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication
Abstract Purpose To connect low resource communities to innovative services that address gaps in health access and knowledge. Description We describe the house party model, as a community-based workshop approach to health education developed by the Westside Healthy Start program (WHS) in Chicago, Illinois. Key elements of the WHS house party model include use of community health workers as facilitators, collaboration with participants and community-based organizations, referrals to health care and social services, and engagement strategies such as interactive activities, personal stories, and discussion. Assessment In 2014 and 2015, WHS completed 23 house parties with 271 participants, delivering education on relevant maternal and child health (MCH) topics. Participants demonstrated improvements in knowledge of several health-related areas. About half of participants were able to identify causes or signs of preterm labor prior to the house party, compared to over 80% after. In addition, 94% of participants rated the house party workshops “excellent” or “good”. Conclusion House parties are a promising strategy for increasing knowledge about MCH topics and linking hard-to-reach populations to resources in the community. Keywords Health care · Community health workers · Education · Social determinants of health
Significance
Purpose
What is already known on this subject? Health education and access to care are important social determinants of health. Low resource communities served by the national Healthy Start program are in particular need of services to address gaps in health access and knowledge. What does this study add? The house party model for community-based health education is a promising strategy for increasing knowledge about MCH topics and providing links to health care and social services for diverse, hard-toreach populations.
The National Healthy Start (NHS) program model seeks to reduce infant mortality in the highest risk communities in the United States using five approaches: improve women’s health, promote quality services, strengthen family resilience, achieve collective impact, and increase accountability through quality improvement, performance monitoring, and evaluation (Maternal and Child Health Bureau, 2016). In 1997, Access Community Health Network launched the Westside Healthy Start program (WHS) to improve perinatal health outcomes by providing maternal and child health (MCH) services to high-risk, predominantly African-American women and children residing in Chicago. Currently, we serve approximately 800 families annually who experience some of the highest poverty rates in the nation. Our WHS target area also has an infant mortality rate of 14.1 per 1000 live births, which is more than double the national figure (Illinois Depa
Data Loading...
