An Innovative Approach for Integrating Health Care Providers into Food Borne Illness Prevention for Older Adults

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: The incidence and rate of morbidity and mortality associated with food borne illnesses increases with age. As the number of persons living to older ages increases, it is important to ensure that this at-risk population and those who provide care for them have access to quality food safety education. The proposed study builds on research we conducted with older adults which identified health care providers as a desired source of information on food safety. However, previous research suggests that physicians who treat patients at high risk for food borne illness do not routinely provide information on food safety or possible resulting illnesses. The overall goal of this project is to integrate food safety education into preventive health care for adults aged 60 and older. This goal will be accomplished in three phases: (1) conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews to understand health care providers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding food safety education for older adults; (2) develop instructional materials on food safety for health care providers who deliver preventive health care to older adults and innovative educational materials that health care providers can distribute to older adults as part of preventive health care; and (3) disseminate and evaluate the effectiveness of the educational materials distributed to health care providers and older adults. Equipping health care providers with information on food borne illness prevention and working with them to disseminate this information to older adults will result in safer food consumption and handling practices among older adults.

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APPROACH: The project will be completed in three phases: (1) conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews to understand health care providers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding food safety education for older adults; (2) develop instructional materials on food safety for health care providers who deliver preventive health care to older adults and innovative educational materials that health care providers can distribute to older adults as part of preventive health care; and (3) disseminate and evaluate the effectiveness of the educational materials distributed to health care providers and older adults. More specifically, we will achieve the project objectives through the following action steps:1) Conduct tele-focus groups and in-depth interviews with physicians, registered nurses, physician assistants, home health aids, in-home caregivers, and other individuals who deliver preventive health care to older adults. 2) Use the findings from the qualitative research to identify the types of health care providers who are most receptive to learning about food safety education and disseminating this information to older adults. 3) Develop technologically advanced educational materials (with CEU credits when applicable) tailored to two types of health care providers. 4) Conduct external evaluation of the educational materials and refine the materials based on the recommendations. 5) Develop a collection of food safety/recipe cards. 6) Conduct focus groups with older adults to evaluate the food safety/recipe cards and refine the materials based on the focus group findings. 7) Disseminate the educational materials to health care providers at state and/or regional conferences and conduct an Internet survey to assess their ability to deliver food safety education to older adults. 8) Work with local health care providers to disseminate the educational materials to older adults and interview older adults to assess the effectiveness of the educational materials. 9) Secure support and funding from the manufacturing sector of private industry. 10) Work with non-profit and commercial health care organizations to enable expansion of distribution network.