Prostate Cancer Ambassadors: Enhancing a Theory-Informed Training Program for Informed Decision-Making

Abstract

Despite the high burden of prostate cancer in African American communities, there is a paucity of knowledge about prostate health. This paper describes the enhancement of a curriculum for training lay health advisors, called prostate cancer ambassadors, on informed decision-making for prostate cancer screening. Adult learning theory informed the structuring of the training sessions to be interactive, self-directed, and engaging. Trainings were developed in a manner that made the material relevant to the learners and encouraged co-learning. The research team developed strategies, such as using discussions and interactive activities, to help community members weigh the pros and cons of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening and to make an informed decision about screening. Furthermore, activities were developed to bolster four social cognitive theory constructs: observational learning, self-efficacy for presenting information to the community and for making an informed decision themselves, collective efficacy for presenting information to the community, and outcome expectations from those presentations. Games, discussions, and debates were included to make learning fun and encourage discovery. Practice sessions and team-building activities were designed to build self-efficacy for sharing information about informed decision-making. Topics added to the original curriculum included updates on prostate cancer screening, informed decision-making for screening, skills for being a lay health advisor, and ethics. This dynamic model and approach to lay health advisor (ambassador) training is flexible: while it was tailored for use with prostate cancer education, it can be adjusted for use with other types of cancer and even other diseases.

Prostate Cancer Ambassadors

“…The present study used a single group, pretest-posttest design to assess the training and outreach outcomes of the Prostate Cancer Ambassador Informed Decision-Making training program, whereby the curriculum utilizes principles of adult learning theory (e.g., Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2015), which informed the interactive manner in which material was presented to the Ambassadors, and social cognitive theory (e.g., Bandura, 1986), which emphasized building self-efficacy for presenting the material to the community. The details of the development of the training program and its curriculum have been fully described elsewhere (Vines et al, 2015). The original training was developed for African Americans by African American community leaders, though it was refined by a multiethnic team of researchers and community members.…”

“…The Prostate Cancer Ambassador Informed Decision-Making training program was designed to be implemented over a 2-day training period for a total of 12 hours (Vines et al, 2015). A community partner with a history of grassroots community education efforts co-facilitated the sessions with the CHE and doctoral student.…”

Increasing farmers market access among low-income shoppers in Washington state: understanding the role of peer-to-peer programs

“…There is some variety in the definition of "peer-to-peer" (P2P) interventions in the literature, but the major commonalities are that they involve individuals (e.g. peer educators) who are members of the target community, who are natural helpers, natural leaders, a person others trust and typically turn to for support, and someone who has a large social network (17- 19). The role of peer educators is to promote the health of community members by providing health information, resources, or referrals in an informal, and culturally relevant way (19)(20)(21).…”

“…Many studies have looked at the effectiveness of training peer educators, and generally found training to be effective at increasing the knowledge of peer educators(19, 24-26, 34, 39) and in some cases creating positive behavior change in the peer educators themselves(26,34). Training sessions improve the self-efficacy and retention of individual educators(19,23,26). A leadership team that prioritizes providing quality education to the chosen peer educators is a key component of P2P initiatives.…”