Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center: Final Report
From WikiAdvocacy
Following the awarding of the CCFHH Program to Brookdale’s Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program, the University Hospital began to explore avenues for distribution and utilization of the Family Health History tool in its community. This was a welcomed “health awareness intervention”, as it provided tangible ways to engage the community to discuss what is often an elusive topic for our community; Good Health and Prevention. 3500 booklets were printed, 1750 of each booklet. Over half of these have been distributed.
The first focus group was held with parents of the sickle cell program’s monthly Parent Support Group. Twelve (12) parents attended this group and gave their feedback on the booklets. 100% of the feedback was favorable and parents shared that the booklets would be helpful in generating a discussion around sickle cell trait and disease as well as other health issues that were prevalent in their families.
The second focus group was held with our Project Management Advisory Committee. This committee includes all stakeholders in the Community-Based Sickle Cell Project, (a HRSA initiative), and consists of three hospitals. This group also gave positive feedback and a representative from the Brooklyn Public Library thought it would be a good addition to some of the Human Genome Projects that the library had undertaken.
A total of three educational/distribution sessions were held. The first event was the Annual Parent’s Retreat. Since that event, thirty other events were held to educate and promote the use of the Family Health History Booklets. Through these sessions approximately eighteen hundred booklets (combination of booklets 1 and 2) were disseminated in various venues, including libraries, public schools, public forums and churches. Ninety percent of the listed sessions represent activities that were undertaken to promote the CCFHH activity. Others were standing activities that were a part of our HRSA Program and we incorporated a discussion about and distributed the Family Health History booklets.
The following is a table of these outreach and education sessions:
Finally, a brief survey was conducted with the parents who agreed to utilize the toolkit. The survey asked basic questions of whether the booklets had generated any family discussions with older family members. The survey included questions about conditions and other diseases in the family’s health history, with outcome queries such as, “did parents find out anything that they had not previously known”. The responses from the survey were favorable, with families stating that they found the booklets useful and it they did help to generate a conversation around Family Health History.
The Brookdale Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program surpassed its proposed goals and objectives for the Project. However, if it were to recommend this project to another program, it would designate a .30% FTE person, in order to better assess the utilization and outcomes for individuals and families using the booklets.
Click to return to Community Centered Family Health History Program Awardees.
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