Posts Tagged ‘community’
Vaccinating Kids Against Flu Protects Whole Community, Canadian Study
A new study carried out in Hutterite communities in Canada revealed that giving kids and teenagers flu shots led to lower rates of flu in communities that followed such a strategy compared to similar communities that did not, suggesting that vaccinating children may prevent the virus from spreading and protects members of the community who are not vaccinated, produc…
Medical student engagement and leadership within a new learning community
Background:
Many medical schools are establishing learning communities to foster cohesion among students and to strengthen relationships between students and faculty members. Emerging learning communities require nurturing and attention; this represents an opportunity wherein medical students can become involved as leaders. This study sought to understand issues related to active involvement among students who chose to become highly engaged in a newly developed learning community.MethodBetween April and June 2008, 36 students who assumed leadership roles within the Colleges Program were queried electronically with open-ended questions about their engagement. Qualitative analysis of the written responses was independently performed by two investigators; coding was compared for agreement. Content analysis identified major themes.
Results:
35 students (97%) completed the questionnaire. Motives that emerged as reasons for getting involved included: endorsing the need for the program; excitement with the start-up; wanting to give back; commitment to institutional excellence; and collaboration with talented peers and faculty. Perceived benefits were grouped under the following domains: connecting with others; mentoring; learning new skills; and recognition. The most frequently identified drawbacks were the time commitment and the opportunity costs. Ideas for drawing medical students into new endeavors included: creating defined roles; offering a breadth of opportunities; empowering students with responsibility; and making them feel valued.
Conclusions:
Medical students were drawn to and took on leadership roles in a medical school curricular innovation. This example may prove helpful to others hoping to engage students as leaders in learning communities at their schools or those wishing to augment student involvement in other programs.
Introducing an online community into a clinical education setting: a pilot study of student and staff engagement and outcomes using blended learning
Background:There are growing reasons to use both information and communication functions of learning technologies as part of clinical education, but the literature offers few accounts of such implementations or evaluations of their impact. This paper details the process of implementing a blend of online and face-to-face learning and teaching in a clinical education setting and it reports on the educational impact of this innovation.Methods:This study designed an online community to complement a series of on-site workshops and monitored its use over a semester. Quantitative and qualitative data recording 43 final-year medical students’ and 13 clinical educators’ experiences with this blended approach to learning and teaching were analysed using access, adoption and quality criteria as measures of impact.Results:The introduction of the online community produced high student ratings of the quality of learning and teaching and it produced student academic results that were equivalent to those from face-to-face-only learning and teaching. Staff had mixed views about using blended learning.Conclusions:Projects such as this take skilled effort and time. Strong incentives are required to encourage clinical staff and students to use a new mode of communication. A more synchronous or multi-channel communication feedback system might stimulate increased adoption. Cultural change in clinical teaching is also required before clinical education can benefit more widely from initiatives such as this.
Healthcare Costs a Problem? Visit a Community Health Center or Free Clinic
Save Money on Your Medications
Each week, Dr. Mike offers a tip on how to save money on your medications.
Community Health Centers
Community health centers that are regulated by the federal government can be found in many parts of the country. These clinics provide care to people without health insurance and have sliding fee scales based on income. Many of these clinics have pharmacies on site or have contracts with community pharmacies.
Find a health center in your community.
Free Clinics
Free clinics are community clinics that provide health care for free or very little cost to uninsured people. These clinics help their patients get low cost or free medications. Some free clinics have pharmacies on site or have arrangements with local pharmacies, and some rely on samples and pharmaceutical company patient assistance programs.
Find a free clinic in your community.
Healthcare Costs a Problem? Visit a Community Health Center or Free Clinic originally appeared on About.com Drugs on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 08:04:30.
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Implementation fidelity of packaged teen smoking cessation treatments delivered in community-based settings
Efficacious ‘packaged’ teen smoking cessation treatment programs, those developed by national organizations, are widely disseminated to local communities to help teens quit smoking. The implementation fidelity of these programs in community settings has not been documented. The efficacy of these programs could be lessened if they are not implemented as intended. Data from Helping Young Smokers Quit describe the frequency and types of modifications made to packaged teen cessation treatment programs for community delivery. A national sample of 591 community-based teen tobacco cessation treatment programs was profiled and 59% used a single packaged treatment program. Bivariate analyses found that 63% of program administrators reported implementing their program as planned; 37% modified their selected program. The most frequently reported modifications were made to the length and format of the program. Of those who modified their programs, >90% reported multiple program modifications (e.g. length and content). Administrators modified their programs to accommodate implementation barriers, such as time constraints and low participant enrollment, and to address the needs of participants with multiple risk behaviors that are co-morbid with tobacco use.
Community-based health programmes: role perceptions and experiences of female peer facilitators in Mumbai’s urban slums
Community-based initiatives have become a popular approach to addressing the health needs of underserved populations, in both low- and higher-income countries. This article presents findings from a study of female peer facilitators involved in a community-based maternal and newborn health intervention in urban slum areas of Mumbai. Using qualitative methods we explore their role perceptions and experiences. Our findings focus on how the facilitators understand and enact their role in the community setting, how they negotiate relationships and health issues with peer groups, and the influence of credibility. We contextualize this within broader conceptualizations of peer-led health interventions and offer recommendations for similar community-based health initiatives.
Keeping Kids Smokefree: lessons learned on community participation
Community participation in program decision-making and implementation is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders aspire to in participatory research. This ideal, however, can be difficult to achieve. We describe lessons learned about community participation from a quasi-experimental trial aimed at reducing the uptake of smoking among pre-adolescents in a community with a high percentage of Maori and Pacific Island people. The intervention involves students, parents, school teachers and management, extended families and members of the wider community. A total of approximately 4000 students (and their parents) of four urban Auckland schools were enrolled in the study over 3 years. The intervention is carried out through collaborations between public health professionals, academic institutions and school personnel. In order to enhance community participation, we conclude that (i) time commitment is needed to establish long-term ongoing relationships through face-to-face communication, (ii) research team members should ideally share similar cultural and ethnic backgrounds to the target audience and have in-depth understanding of and experience in the community milieu and (iii) collaborative partnerships between academic institutions and public health services are necessary to create strength and cohesion, and assist with clear articulation of the research project mission and objectives.
New Guide Available From U.S. Government For Community And Faith-Based Organizations Working To Help Americans Stay Healthy From H1N1 And Seasonal Flu
Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships began distributing a new flu-response guide for community and faith-based organizations this week in an effort to reach out and educate Americans about the dangers of the new H1N1 and seasonal flu, and to reach populations who may not have access to this public health information in other ways.
National Community Pharmacists Association Applauds House Of Representatives For Passing Bill Maintaining Seniors’ Access To Durable Medical Equipment
The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3663, a bill introduced yesterday by Reps. Zach Space (D-OH) and Lee Terry (R-NE) extending the accreditation deadline for pharmacies providing Medicare Part B Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) from Sept. 30 to Dec. 31, 2009.
A qualitative exploration of the community partner experience in a faith-based breast cancer educational intervention
Although community partner engagement is a key component in faith-based health promotion/disease prevention intervention research, the perspective of community partners on their experiences in the intervention process has been infrequently investigated. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 African-American community partners [i.e. four pastors and eight lay health co-ordinators (LHCs)] from eight churches in greater Baltimore, MD, USA, that engaged in a breast cancer educational intervention that followed a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Audiotaped interviews were transcribed, coded and content analysis was used to identify themes across the codes. Findings show that pastors support a holistic approach to health and that LHCs act as a link between the pastors, participants and academic researchers. In addition, pastors and LHCs emphasized that the religious and/or spiritual program elements should not overpower the importance of reaching participants with critical health information regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs. Study findings suggest that faith-based educational intervention efforts that follow a CBPR approach are important in promoting cancer awareness in the African-American community. Including community partner assessment can further elucidate critical intervention impacts and helps to address health disparities in underserved communities.
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