A Health Screening, Outreach and Assessment Program

Reuben, David

Abstract

The aims of this project are the following: 1. To modify existing health and functional status screening instruments and develop new instruments in conjunction with the Research Core, when necessary, that are sensitive to the ethnic differences of the inner-city African-American population. 2. To train community-based health professionals in the Project Safety Net model. 3.To use existing senior citizens' centers, meal sites, board-and-care housing, and churches, to identify frail elderly persons who may benefit from the Project Safety Net comprehensive geriatric assessment and to integrate explicitly family members into the process of assessment and compliance with referral for high-risk elderly. 4. To collect preliminary data to prepare for the submission of a proposed randomized clinical trial that tests the effectiveness of the Project Safety Net model in an inner city African-American population. In conjunction with the Research Core, the pilot will first select instruments for screening an urban African-American population. The project will then screen a population of participants at several senior citizens' centers in South Central and perform selective comprehensive geriatric assessments. The staff will refer participants to needed services and communicate the results of the screening to the primary providers. The result of the pilot phase will be a clinical community- based screening program tailored to the needs of the inner-city African- American community.