Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Report

Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

Health Reform Dissemination

Asian Center – Southeast Michigan has about 30 Asian Americans trained by MDCH certified trainers to become health advocates who are capable to disseminate the new health reform law to community folks. These trained Asian American health advocates include bilingual speakers of Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. A major effort was put in April of 2011 to manage this task as a celebration for the minority health month. Now these advocates are ready to give talks in their community; whenever there is a gathering and wherever the community wants to learn the new health reform law. Please contact AC-SE MI by phone or e-mails if you are interested in scheduling such a workshop.

Minority Health Month 2011

Final Report

Health Reform Dissemination among Asian Americans in Michigan

Collaborating agencies for the events/activities

Asian IndiansMichigan Association of Physicians of Indian OriginMAPI
ChineseMichigan Chinese Women AssociationMCWA
FilipinosPhilippine Nurse Association of MichiganPNAM
KoreansKorean American Cultural Center of MichiganKACCM
VietnameseVietnamese American Association of MichiganVAAM

Activities/Events

  • 4/2 PPACA training at Schoolcraft Vista Center for 32 health advocates from 5 Asian ethnic communities: Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans and Vietnamese
  • 4/10 PPACA workshop at W Bloomfield library for Chinese by MCWA
  • 4/16 PPACA workshop at Lawrence Tech U for Filipinos and Asian Indians
  • 4/24 PPACA workshops at Beaumont urology center for Vietnamese by VAAM
  • 4/24/PPACA workshop at Korean Center for Koreans by KACCM

Evaluations

Pre and post test outcomes

Pre-questionnairePost- questionnaire
4/2 health advocates training (27 datasets)6.3 (sd=2.3)8.2 (sd=0.6)
All dissemination workshops (109 datasets)6.8 (sd=1.6)7.8 (sd=1.5)

Although more than 200 people attended all events, not everyone took the pre- & post- questionnaires, nor did the workshop evaluation for various reasons; e.g., late comers, didn’t complete most of the questions, and refused etc.

The full presentation was used for training while only the short version was used for workshops; which may be one of the reasons for more improvement on training. Notice the pre- was higher for the workshop participants; and also the standard deviation for training went from 2.3 to .6 while that for workshop almost remained the same. See Attachment I for details of all pre-/post- report.

All workshop evaluations

MeanStd. Deviation
1.Presenter- clear and easy to understand4.43.82
2.Workshop topic interesting4.55.77
3.Workshop environment comfortable4.60.70
4.Enough time for Q & A4.28.86
5.Information_practical4.46.76
6.Refer the workshop to others4.55.72
7.Workshop rating4.58.59

Improvement of knowledge on the Patient Protection Affordability Care Act (PPACA)

  • Simply offering such a workshop would raise the awareness of many people; and these days with the internet, many would first go online to learn a little before coming to the event.
  • By going through the PPACA PowerPoint presentation slides supplied by MichUHCAN and explaining each slide by a State trained and certified speaker.
  • The pre-/post- response from the last question also is a proof for the increased knowledge gained by participants.
  • The fact MDCH would offer such a program for community added the importance of the subject and people would like to learn. (This is Asian culture. There is usually a build-in authority of any governmental activity.)

Positive outcomes of the activity/events

  • People learned more about the new health reform law (evidence: pre- and post- difference) and how it affects them.
  • Bring awareness to many Asian Americans that health matters and they also need to pay attention to it and learn more.
  • Build up more health advocates among Asian Americans that can disseminate this law to their community in their preferred languages (capacity building).
  • Dissemination will continue even though the project is ended.

Challenges in planning and administering the activity/events

  • Many people tend to ignore new health law thinking it won’t affect them, therefore not worth spending time to learn it.
  • Too busy to attend any community functions.
  • Like all community volunteer work, only handful people are interested and willing to be health advocates. It always needs to “draft” people instead of getting volunteers.
  • Some may think the new law is too hard to understand, therefore don’t want to be bothered to learn. If it is needed later, deal it then.

Organizations benefits

  • Capacity Building: one of the major goals of Asian Center – SE MI is to train more bilingual health advocates among Asian American communities. This activity provided the opportunity and built the health capacity within the community.
  • Community Engagement: any health related workshop for the community is an opportunity for community to learn and to mingle.
  • Positive image of government: activities with funding support from the government always tell community that government does care for its people.

Asian Center – SE MI
2011