Delivery of Health Education in Adolescents with Behavioral Health Challenges

BACKGROUND Adolescents with behavioral health issues tend to have inadequate access to health education, and are thus less aware of the importance of personal and dental hygiene, exercise, and healthy diet and lifestyle habits. Due to this disparity, this population has been known to harbor a higher prevalence of STI’s, drug and alcohol abuse, physical altercations, juvenile detention, and suicide attempts. PURPOSE The overall objective of this study was to examine the effect of integrating a health science curriculum in this population. METHODS Participants aged 5-17 years old were recruited and assigned to either control or science groups by Family and Children’s Services (FCS). We created an 8-week health science curriculum to teach everyday life skills. A questionnaire was utilized to assess participants’ comprehension of health information. The effect of the curriculum on participants’ behaviors was examined using a pre/post “Behavioral Insight” questionnaire. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was utilized to determine whether there was a significant difference in behavioral goals and science based knowledge between the control and science groups. RESULTS We examined two measurements to evaluate the efficacy of delivering health science information to 23 participants in two science groups, compared to 20 participants in two control groups who did not receive the curriculum. The health knowledge assessment results demonstrated a marginally significant improvement of understanding and retaining health science, which was delivered to the science group in 8 independent sessions on a weekly basis (p=0.0669). We observed a statistically significant difference in participants’ understanding of their behavioral deficits and how to improve primary behavior (p=0.01). There was no significant difference in either group regarding the extent to which participants understand the particular behavior to improve (p\u3e0.05). CONCLUSION Findings from our study demonstrate that integration of an 8-week science curriculum into life skill training did not negatively affect participants’ understanding of their own behaviors. Compared to the control group, we observed a marginally significant improvement in health knowledge assessment scores among students in the science group. Finally, the 8-week science curriculum, both active and passive learning components, was determined to be an effective delivery method for the content involved. Further study in a larger sample may be necessary to detect significant effects of the curriculum

The Role of Nutritional Education for the Homeless

Background and Purpose: Lack of nutritional knowledge in navigating limited dietary options is a major problem for homeless populations. Previous efforts have been focused on encouraging dietary changes by providing basic nutritional information. Still, the homeless have difficulty making these changes due to a lack of choices. This study implemented nutrition fairs at the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in downtown Kalamazoo, to inform homeless and transient population about nutrition and making healthier food choices. Methods: The nutrition fair comprised of 4 booths, each providing information about caloric intake, recommended portion size, healthy choices and nutrition labels. The main focus is to arm participants with the skills to make the most out of their food options. Each participant was administered a survey before (pretest) and after (posttest) attending the nutrition fair. The survey assessed how respondents’ dietary choices or satisfaction changed after attending the nutrition fair. There were similar six questions written in plain language with pictures, in both pre-and post-survey. Data was collected over six session and we conducted descriptive statistics. Results: Thirty-two adult participant completed the pre-and post-surveys. The study revealed a statistically significant improvement in nutrition knowledge after receiving information. About 65% of the study subjects did not report any significant change in knowledge. Within this group, several (30%) had perfect scores on the pretest, though this was insignificant. There were also some respondents (9.4%) who scored lower on the posttest than the pretest. We found that lack of education was not a major barrier to healthy eating. However, most of the participants identified insufficient quantities of food to maintain their energy level and weight as a major problem the homeless population encounter. In addition, lack of money was a critical problem and attempts to educate participants to purchase inexpensive produce rather than prepackaged or otherwise unhealthy options were somewhat inconsequential. Conclusions: Our study suggests that nutrition fair could be an efficient method for improving the nutritional knowledge of the homeless population. Rather than healthy choice food, majority of the study participant were concerned about lack of sufficient quantities of food to maintain their energy level and weight. Future nutritional education programs should focus on using items in locally prepared meals to encourage homeless population to make healthier food choices. Keywords: homeless, nutrition, fairs, education, healthy, options, improvemen