Projects & Publications

Clinical Impacts Text of Promotoras-led Education on Child Pesticides Exposure

Start Date: September 1, 2005 | Completion Date: August 31, 2006

Project Purpose

The proposed project will develop and test a methodology for assessing the impact of environmental health education, and the integral role of training and deployment of promotoras for community-environmental health education, on clinical outcomes for children who might be subject to pesticide exposure.

Project Description

The three-year project addresses limitations of earlier studies through the development of a multi-stage, multi-population intervention and associated evaluation design. Project goals include: 1) to examine the impact of promotora selection and training (pre-post tested) on environmental health knowledge, behavior, and educational effectiveness, 2) to evaluate, prior to and after educational interventions, knowledge and behaviors of community adults with regard to in-home conditions and family practices that affect pesticide exposure, and (3) assess the impact of health education on clinical indicators (at several points in time) for child pesticide exposure. To more fully isolate the impacts of promotoras-led environmental health education on clinical outcomes, the project will include both intervention and control communities in Texas Border colonias.

Accomplishments

Documents for administration of informed consent, activity logs, and questionnaires have been completed and translated into Spanish. The health education module has been reviewed and translated for delivery to promotoras. Questionnaires were administered to 53 families in the first two colonias. The first two rounds of exposure measurements have been completed (as of April 3rd) in two colonias, with 48 families providing samples the first round and 51 providing samples for the second round. A third round is scheduled for April 24th in the initial colonias, and the initial round of exposure measurements will be conducted in the third colonia the first week of May. Health education modules will be delivered to the promotoras in late May, and the colonia families in June. A follow-up exposure study is currently scheduled for late June and October.

Expected Outcomes

Expected outcomes include development of a tested methodology for a multi-stage, multi-population intervention and associated evaluation design. Instruments will be developed for assessing the impact of pesticide education on the knowledge and performance of promotoras in health educational roles and for assessing the impact of promotoras-led health education on pesticide knowledge and behaviors of parents in colonias relative to childhood pesticide exposure. Demonstration of the chain of relationships among the educational interventions connecting promotorasdirected education and performance, parent improvements in pesticide-related knowledge and behavior, changing parent household practices and conditions, and clinical outcomes among children in colonias.

Presentations or Publications

Several presentations are planned.

Project Contacts

K.C. Donnelly
Texas A&M HSC School of Rural Public Health
Department of Environmental & Occupational Health
Southwest Rural Health Research Center
(979) 845-7956
kdonnelly@srph.tamhsc.edu

Participants

K.C. Donnelly, Larry Gamm, Jim Burdine, Marlynn May, Graciela Castillo, Karen Denison, Leslie Cizmas, Carmen Sumaya