PROMOTING DEMENTIA AWARENESS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES: IMPACT OF THE DEMENTIA CARING COMMUNITY OUTREACH MODEL

African Americans (AAs) disproportionately suffer from Alzheimer's Disease (AD), yet few community interventions exist to improve education and the quality of life of AAs with AD and their care partners. Mayo Clinic Florida set out to reproduce Minnesota's dementia caring community (DCC) model and adapt it specifically to the AA community. We selected two comparable neighborhoods in Jacksonville. In our intervention neighborhood, we reproduced the Minnesota model, including: (1) educating the community on AD; (2) assessing the needs of community stakeholders through surveys, focus groups, and interviews; (3) reporting back to the community; (4) forming a community taskforce that evaluated potential initiatives to meet those needs; (5) voting on the top initiatives to be implemented in 2019; and (6) assisting workgroup members in implementing their first initiatives in the community. In our control neighborhood, we provided a lecture series where our participants learned about different topics related to AD. Our primary objective was to assess changes in AD knowledge over time. A 7-item measure assessing AD knowledge was administered to participants in the intervention and control groups before the first education session (pre-test), after the education session (post-test) and at the two months follow-up. Results suggest that the DCC project had a significant impact on increasing the AD knowledge of non-caregivers from pre-test (M=4.59, SD=1.47) to post-test (M=5.68, SD=1.46, p=0.000) and from pre-test to follow-up (M=5.27, SD=1.55, p=0.048). Knowledge of caregivers in the intervention group also increased and remained marginally significant over time, from pre-test (M=4.87, SD-1.36) to post-test (M=5.77, SD=.99, p=0.001), and from pre-test to follow-up (M=5.03, SD=1.47, p=0.604). No significant changes were noted among participants in the control group. Results suggest that participation in the DCC model may contribute to greater AD knowledge retention over time. Increased knowledge may also result in greater community support for AAs with AD and their care partners. As the initiatives are implemented in the intervention neighborhood, post-implementation evaluations will examine how the DCC model can make a sustainable impact on AD knowledge, caregiver physical and emotional health, and perceived community support, in comparison to the control neighborhood.