NN/LM OutreachEvaluationResourceCenter

Workshop: Using Questionnaires for Program Evaluation

2016

Hair Stylists for Healthy Women Project

Program Description

Background: The Hair Stylists for Healthy Women Project is a lay health advisor program[1] in which hair stylists are trained as lay health advisors to educate their clientele about diabetes. They promote healthy behaviors through health chats about diabetes, with a goal of two chats per client within a six-week period. As part of this program, the project team is partnering with Our Library to improve hair stylists’ ability to find health information for their clients.

Goal: To improve hair stylists’ ability to find high-quality online consumer health information to help them with their responsibilities as lay health advisors.

Lay health advisor hair stylists: 60 hair stylists -- all women.

Activities:Health information outreach training strategies:Our Library will train the hair stylists to use MedlinePlus to find health information. The strategies are

  • Two training sessions to teach hair stylists how to find and evaluate online health information resources
  • Training sessions held in public libraries so the hair stylists without Internet access would know where to find public computers
  • Trainer follow-up with each hair stylist at least twice during the project period to offer one-to-one assistance in locating health information
  • Hair stylists provided with phone and email contact information for trainers and encouraged to contact their trainers if they needed help finding information.

Deliverables: Over the 12-month training period:

  • 90% of hair stylists will be trained to find good consumer health information.
  • 80% of participants will rate the training sessions positively

Short-term outcomes objectives: At the end of each training session, 75% of participants will report that:

  • Their ability to find health information is improved
  • They have more confidence in finding good health information online
  • They plan to use the online resources to help their clients.

Long-term outcomes objectives: In a follow-up survey given one month after training:

  • 80% of hair stylists will report using MedlinePlus or other NLM resources.
  • 50% will report using MedlinePlus or other NLM resources to help a client.
  • 50% of hair stylists will provide examples of how their clients used MedlinePlu

[1]The project described for the workshop exercises is fictional. However, the description is based on the “Healthy Hair Starts with a Healthy Body,” a real project of the National Kidney Foundation of Michigan that used hair stylists as lay health advisors.