Educating the masses to address a global public health priority: The Preventing Dementia Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Abstract

Dementia is a global public health priority and risk reduction is an important pillar of the public health response. While 40% of cases are estimated to be attributable to modifiable health and lifestyle risk factors, public awareness of the evidence is low, limiting peoples’ opportunity to adopt risk-reducing behaviours. To address this gap, we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational intervention, the Preventing Dementia Massive Open Online Course (PDMOOC). This mixed-methods study examined the reach and impact of the free and globally available PDMOOC, to assess its potential to provide effective dementia risk reduction education to a broad international audience. Over 100,000 individuals participated in the PDMOOC across seven iterations from 2016 to 2020, with 55,739 of these consenting to participate in research. Their mean age was 49 years (SD = 15), they came from 167 different countries, and the majority were female (86%), had completed post-secondary education (77%), lived in high-income countries (93%) and worked in health care and social assistance (63%). This demographic profile changed across time, with more men, people with higher education and people from low- and middle-income countries participating in recent course iterations. Two-thirds of participants completed the PDMOOC; completion was associated with being aged 50 to 70 years, residing in a high-income country, having tertiary education, and working in the health sector. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the PDMOOC, improved dementia risk reduction understanding and self-efficacy, increased motivation to maintain healthy lifestyles, and, importantly, application of their learning to health behaviour change with the potential to reduce their dementia risk. The PDMOOC educated a large global audience about dementia risk reduction, which contributed to participants making risk-reducing behaviour changes. This suggests MOOCs can be a successful public health strategy to improve dementia risk reduction understanding.

Development and Evaluation of a Massive Open Online Course on Healthcare Redesign: A Novel Method for Engaging Healthcare Workers in Quality Improvement

“…A summary of these modules and their Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) can be found in Table 1 . The six modules were then transposed to a pre-existing Learning Management System (LMS) developed by the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, a partner organisation which has itself developed several highly successful MOOCs [ 19 , 20 ].…”

An online, public health framework supporting behaviour change to reduce dementia risk: interim results from the Island Study Linking Ageing and Neurodegenerative Disease

“…Exposure to PDMOOC was coded as a dummy variable, with '0' indicating no exposure and '1' indicating they had completed at least the rst of four modules. This cut point is based on records showing most participants who complete the rst module go on to nish the course (25). Participants who had enrolled in the PDMOOC prior to joining ISLAND (and therefore had a record on the learning management system) were assigned '1' at baseline, to avoid confounding in analyses of intervention effects.…”

“…More generic health promotion messages about how and why making small changes toward these health goals can support brain health are disseminated to ISLAND participants via email-based newsletters, and public broadcast via local radio, print newspapers and social media. Through these pathways, ISLAND participants are encouraged to engage with self-education about dementia risk reduction, and to do the PDMOOC (25). This 4week online course conveys established and emerging evidence regarding modi able dementia risks using print materials, videos, quizzes and discussion boards.…”

“…ISLAND involves two key knowledge-based interventions (1). These are: 1) a personalised Dementia Risk Pro le (DRP) report (24) which is provided upon completion of baseline and subsequent survey waves; and 2) the Preventing Dementia Massive Open Online Course (PDMOOC) (25). These two interventions are intended to increase dementia risk literacy and stimulate risk reduction through behaviour change across the range of modi able dementia risk domains identi ed by the WHO (5).…”

Dementia Risk Reduction in Primary Care: A Scoping Review of Clinical Guidelines Using a Behavioral Specificity Framework

“…Population-level approaches to preventing dementia include campaigns to raise awareness [7][8][9][10], massive open online educational courses [11], and manipulating environments to nudge people toward healthier choices [12][13][14]. To complement these population-level approaches, PCPs are being called upon to integrate dementia risk reduction (DRR) actions into their delivery of preventive care [15,16].…”