Erica L. Childs, MPH, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 319C Rosenau Hall, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, 919-966-7676, echilds@email.unc.edu, Derek M. Griffith, PhD, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina School of Public Health, 319-C Rosenau Hall, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, Vanessa Jeffries, MEd, Chatham County Health Department, PO Box 130, Pittsboro, NC 27312, and Eugenia Eng, DrPH, Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Rosenau Hall - Campus Box 7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400.

The Institute of Medicine and other organizations have indicated that institutional racism has a tremendous impact on health care services. A Southern county public health department implemented a Dismantling Racism process to examine and address racism in their organization at the individual, organizational, and institutional levels. The Dismantling Racism process is designed to provide a common language and understanding of racism in the healthcare environment, but the effectiveness of the process has never been evaluated. Assessing racism and healthcare disparities within an organization is challenging on many levels, and regardless of the outcome, has the potential to be divisive and negatively impact the organizational climate and ultimately the health department mission of providing the highest quality of care to all county residents. Consequently, health department staff, community members, university representatives, and organizational consultants used a participatory action research approach to develop an evaluation plan to first understand how racism functions within their organization, and then assess the impact of their Dismantling Racism efforts. A critical aspect of the evaluation process was making sure that diverse perspectives on the problem and solution were collected. White staff and staff of color participated in separate focus groups to define benchmarks of success for the intervention, and a diverse team of staff and community members participated in all aspects of instrument development. People who attend this session will learn the challenges and advantages of using a participatory approach to developing an outcome tool measuring racism within an organization, and the results and lessons learned from the evaluation process.

Learning Objectives: Learning objectives

• Describe the steps taken in a participatory evaluation approach to develop an outcome measure for a dismantling racism process within a county public health department.
• Discuss how the structural barriers of the health department and the potential ramifications of the outcome measure shaped the evaluation process.
• Articulate the results and implications of this evaluation process and recommendations for future evaluation of efforts aimed at racism manifested in public health agencies.

Keywords: Community Participation, Health Disparities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.