Details

Description

Micropolitan residents are disproportionately burdened by preventable chronic diseases. One of the best tools for preventing these diseases are evidence-based interventions. Evidence-based interventions (EBI) are strategies proven to reduce negative health outcomes. Though many EBIs exist, uptake of these interventions in rural and micropolitan communities is difficult for many reasons. This core project aims to increase the capacity of micropolitan community leaders to identify, adapt, implement, and evaluate EBIs. The goal is to improve health through increased adoption of EBIs. To accomplish this goal, this project includes three phases:

Phase 1: Find out the barriers and facilitators to implementing EBIs in micropolitan communities by surveying and interviewing the local public health and community-based organizations.

Phase 2: Adapt Putting Public Health Evidence in Action (PPHEIA), a training series designed by the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network to build the capacity of community program planners and health practitioners to use evidence-based approaches to improving health of the populations they serve. This training will be adapted to reflect the barriers and facilitators micropolitan community practitioners identified in Phase 1.

Phase 3: Test the effectiveness of the adapted PPHEIA training and the collaborative by comparing knowledge, awareness, perceptions, and intention to adapt EBIs among a control group (who does not receive the training during the study period), a training only group (who only receives the adapted PPHEIA training), and a training and collaborative group (who participates in the training and the collaborative meetings).

Going forward, our team will provide capacity building, training, and technical assistance through the delivery of the PPHEIA training and to the PPHEIA learning collaborative, where practitioners in this arm of the study will participate in the training and then meet regularly to discuss and take action-oriented steps toward applying training activities to their communities. This work builds from our efforts to provide technical assistance based on identified needs by community partners to help navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.