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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Nancy L. Wilson, MSW, Huffington Center on Agin, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza M-320, Houston, TX 77030-3498, 713-798-5804, nwilson@bcm.edu

Undetected and untreated depression among older adults remains a serious public health problem despite the existence of proven pharmacological and psychosocial treatments. The Healthy IDEAS program is an evidence-based self-management intervention for depression implemented to reach frail, high-risk diverse populations with depressive symptoms. Assessment measures, data collection and evidenced-based approaches using behavioral activation were embedded in the routine service delivery of care managers in three different agencies. Over 300 clients have been screened for depressive symptoms and this presentation reports pre-post comparisons for 83 clients who met cutoff criteria of GDS > 6 and were offered the intervention. Participants had a mean age of 72 years, were 77% female, 47% Hispanic, predominantly low-income ( 55%) and reported 3.6 medical conditions on average. Statistically significant improvements in GDS scores, depression self-efficacy and pain were reported. Successful implementation and maintenance of implementation fidelity involved community-academic partnerships to help case managers develop skills through training and coaching as well as to employ tools to track outcomes and model fidelity. Challenges to sustaining the real world delivery of an evidence-based depression intervention for diverse elders will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Participants will describe how partnerships from social service, medical and university settings can work together to translate evidence-based health promotion models (found to be efficacious in randomized clinical trials) into community settings.
• 2. Participants will be able to define treatment fidelity and articulate the importance of ensuring fidelity to both the tested intervention and research in the translation of evidence-based health promotion models into community settings.
• 3. Participants will develop strategies for maintaining and measuring fidelity to both the tested intervention and research in the translation evidence-based health promotion programs for dissemination in community settings.

Keywords: Health Promotion,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation