Abstract A15: Educating minorities in a nonprofit organization with limited funding and staff
Authors: Silveiras Jose Mendoza , Greenamyer Jasmine 
Published: June 2012

Problem Statement: The Colon Cancer Alliance, in Washington, DC, has begun to conduct prevention education for Spanish-speaking communities. The national patient advocacy organization is developing effective, sustainable strategies for executing our programs. But as a smaller nonprofit with a budget less than $2.5 million and a staff of less than 13 full time staff, we face challenges such as limited staff and resources and a restricted population base from which to recruit volunteer educators.

Definition of the Intended Outcome: Through careful planning and innovative strategies, we have developed a system of leveraging our limited resources to spread our knowledge base by networking with numerous organizations on the front lines of health care.

Description of the Program: Our newly created Hispanic Community Outreach Program assesses educational gaps related to early detection, prevention, and treatment of colon cancer, and identifies key partnerships that can fill those gaps.

A Washington pilot program is establishing a model that can be duplicated by CCA chapters around the United States. It involves numerous actors throughout the health-care delivery system, as well as other channels in Hispanic communities, to translate complex medical terms into easy-to-understand materials for targeted populations.

The program educates health-care providers, health educators, and patient-advocacy organizations about the disease as well as the social, ethnic, religious, and linguistic considerations and stigmata that may inhibit prevention, detection, or treatment.

Since limited resources can suppress many aspects of an educational program, and we do not have sufficient space to train volunteers, we conduct free on-site training at the organizations that work with Hispanic communities. These organizations do not have the necessary infrastructure and personnel to organize workshops and other events. The CCA has conducted outreach or trainings in the following settings: health fairs, clinics, churches, embassies, and consulates.

For example, five Spanish-speaking embassies and consulates in Washington have organized weekly prevention presentations. The CCA is invited to these events to interact with the general public, and the CCA staff and volunteers continue to work with the health educators there.

In the future, we plan to add schools and colleges.

Outcomes: While process evaluation is conducted after each outreach activity, we have one case study that evaluated the impact of our activity. Six months after an initial colon cancer workshop at one local clinic, conducted in Spanish, the educator participants were surveyed in person or by telephone or mail.

One hundred percent responded that the workshop increased their understanding of colorectal cancer, 98 percent said that they had applied the new knowledge in their daily work, and 100 percent agreed that the session had been helpful. We asked when the participants would like a refresher course. One percent said every three months, 14 percent answered every six months, and 85 percent wanted it once per year.

A potential drawback of the survey was that many responses were collected by phone or in person, perhaps inhibiting some people from being fully candid with their opinions. Further, a number of trainees changed jobs, or lost their jobs due to layoffs, within six months of the training.

Conclusions: As we continue working with community health-care providers, our partnerships become ever stronger. Some clinics hold weekly or monthly health fairs and provide CCA with a free table.

Our plan in the next two years is to spread the Hispanic Community Outreach Program into local Colon Cancer Alliance chapters in which there is a high Hispanic population.

Citation Information: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2011;20(10 Suppl):A15.