Recommendations from Lead Poisoning Prevention Program Participants: Best Practices

Abstract

We present a program evaluation of the Phillips Lead Project, a 5-year study of the effectiveness of culture-specific, peer education in maintaining low blood lead levels of children in an inner-city neighborhood. We conducted focus groups to understand how project participants felt about the various strategies employed by the Lead Project. The purpose of this article is to describe their reactions to the project and make recommendations concerning appropriate educational strategies for lead poisoning prevention projects being undertaken in similar communities. Although this project was a research study, many of its methods, and participants' reactions to those methods, are relevant to non-research prevention programs and may be generalizable to other health issues besides lead poisoning.

Messages From Moms: Barriers to and Facilitators of Behavior Change in a Lead Poisoning Preventive Education Project

“…This article focuses on responses to the questions about curriculum and participants' ability to implement recommended strategies. Information about the project's organization and educational delivery techniques such as the peer teacher model is presented elsewhere (Jordan, Lee, Hampton, & Pirie, 2004).…”

Building Materials and Health: A study of perceptions of the healthiness of building and furnishing materials in homes

“…Interestingly, studies on educational interventions on lead reporting participants' descriptions of their learning 'a-ha' moments, were very similar, with examples such as demonstrations of particular daily activities or explaining when the problem behaviour/action is happening (Jordan et al 2004). This similarity is especially relevant given that other possible predictors are very different: educational interventions for lead almost always deal with poorer social groups often of cultural minorities (Jordan et al 2004), while the follow-up trial had a reasonably well-off, more educated sample, representative of the dominant cultural group. Therefore, the observed similarities, despite the demographic differences, could reflect inherent characteristics of the learning process.…”

“…Part II suggests knowledge about the health risks associated with building and furnishing materials is limited and education could be a possible way of addressing this. For example, a cluster of studies deals with education about the hazard of lead-based paint in existing, normally older housing (Ferguson et al 2012;Jordan et al 2007;Brown et al 2006;Jordan et al 2004;Jordan et al 2003;Hilts et al 1998). Again lead seems an ideal example here, because as explained in Section 3.2, it has been recognised as a health hazard and regulated against in many Western countries for a long time, but is an environmentally persistent substance and therefore, despite these efforts, has persisted as a problem.…”

“…Research on the outcomes of educational interventions has identified a wide range of factors that influence possible outcomes, decreasing causal clarity. For example, the participants of the nonintervention group generally also receive additional information about their lead exposures, either through measured blood lead levels, or through measured lead content in household dust, or both (Jordan et al 2003;Brown et al 2006), and some participants have reported this information as inspiring positive change (Jordan et al 2003;Jordan et al 2004). Additionally, it is hard to evaluate all possible influential factors, which are as diverse as the level of rainfall in the months leading to the study, which influences the lead in outdoor dust (Hilts et al 1998), or the type of floor cleaner used for floors painted with lead paint, which can influence greater or lesser release of lead (Jordan et al 2004).…”

“…Although all the studies discussed included demographic information about participants, none evaluated their results in relation to individual psychological factors. Studies that were focus-group based (Jordan et al 2004) reported on a number of factors, which jointly indicate that the assumption that more information directly translates into behaviour change is too simplified. Therefore, even for lead, as the most studied health hazard in homes, there is much to explore around possible mediators that impact assimilation of new information.…”