The goal of this K01 award is to allow David Eisenman, MD, MSHS to develop the skills to conduct community interventions for reducing disparities in health protection for terrorism and public health disasters among low-income Latinos of Mexican and Central-American descent. The award will provide an excellent transition from investigations Dr. Eisenman completed with Latino survivors of political violence and on racial/ethnic disparities in terrorism preparedness and response. The career development plan proposes mentored coursework, tutorials, and investigations to support learning in three core areas: (1) Health promotion research, (2) intervention design and analysis, and (3) terrorism and public health disasters. Latinos are disproportionately affected by disasters and terrorism. The career development activities will be applied to studies developing and testing a narrowcast marketing campaign supplemented with a community health promoter educational outreach to promote preparedness (the intervention). Dr. Eisenman will perform a needs assessment study gathering formative data from community focus groups of low-income Latinos of Mexican and Central-American descent to understand their beliefs regarding preparedness activities, barriers, preferences and facilitators to adopting and sustaining activities, and the behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge that must be addressed in the intervention. The intervention will be devised and refined using participatory research methods and a second round of focus groups. The intervention will be fielded using a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent comparison group design to test its effects and a program valuation will be performed. Results will serve as data for an R01 proposal to more fully evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
The specific aims of this study are (1) To examine the perceived needs of low income Latinos of Central American and Mexican descent for disaster and terrorism preparedness, and identify motivators and barriers to disaster preparedness; (2) to develop, distribute, and evaluate the intervention program, and (3) to test the effects of the intervention among low income, Latinos of Central American and Mexican descent. All phases of the research will be performed in partnership with a Latino community health promoter agency and the LA Department of Public Health.
| Glik, Deborah C; Eisenman, David P; Zhou, Qiong et al. (2014) Using the Precaution Adoption Process model to describe a disaster preparedness intervention among low-income Latinos. Health Educ Res 29:272-83 |
| Eisenman, David P; Williams, Malcolm V; Glik, Deborah et al. (2012) The public health disaster trust scale: validation of a brief measure. J Public Health Manag Pract 18:E11-8 |
| Eisenman, David P; Zhou, Qiong; Ong, Michael et al. (2009) Variations in disaster preparedness by mental health, perceived general health, and disability status. Disaster Med Public Health Prep 3:33-41 |
| Eisenman, David P; Glik, Deborah; Gonzalez, Lupe et al. (2009) Improving Latino disaster preparedness using social networks. Am J Prev Med 37:512-7 |
| Eisenman, David P; Glik, Deborah; Ong, Michael et al. (2009) Terrorism-related fear and avoidance behavior in a multiethnic urban population. Am J Public Health 99:168-74 |
