Scaling Up and Tailoring the "Putting Public Health in Action" Training Curriculum.

Despite access to a growing menu of evidence-based interventions, public health practitioners continue to underuse them, in part because practitioners may require new knowledge, skills, and resources to do so. Numerous foundations, universities, governmental agencies, and consultants are providing trainings to address the gaps in practitioners' capacity. To most significantly affect population health, these trainings need to reach practitioners who may have limited access to on-site trainings. Despite the number of organizations offering trainings, little is known about how to scale up trainings to efficiently extend their reach or how to tailor trainings to the needs of different intervention. The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network and its collaborating centers have developed a training curriculum and delivered it in both in-person and distance formats to a range of audiences. The purpose of this article is to describe the training curriculum and findings from the Network's evaluation of approaches used to scale up delivery of the "Putting Public Health Evidence in Action" curriculum and tailor content for specific evidence-based interventions.

A Qualitative Study Among Mexican Americans to Understand Factors Influencing the Adoption and Enforcement of Home Smoking Bans.

INTRODUCTION: One-third of Mexican-American children, in addition to nonsmoker adults, are exposed to secondhand smoke at home, yet few interventions target Mexican-American households. An effective, brief English language program, tested with United Way 2-1-1 callers in Atlanta, increased home smoking bans (confirmed by air monitors). Two randomized controlled trials in North Carolina and Texas replicated those results. We explored factors determining adoption and enforcement of smoking bans in Mexican-American households to inform program linguistic and cultural adaptation to broaden program reach and relevance. METHODS: Bilingual interviewers recruited convenience samples of Mexican-American smokers and nonsmokers living with at least one smoker in Houston and San Diego households and asked open-ended questions regarding conditions for implementing home and vehicle smoking bans and conditions for varying acceptance of bans. Investigators independently reviewed English transcripts and completed a descriptive analysis using ATLAS.ti. RESULTS: Participants (n = 43) were predominantly female (n = 31), current smokers (n = 26), interviewed in Spanish (n = 26), had annual household incomes less than $30000 (n = 24), and allowed smoking inside the home (n = 24). Themes related to difficulty creating and enforcing bans included courtesy, respect for guests and heads of household who smoke, and gender imbalances in decision making. Participants viewed protecting children's health as a reason for the ban but not protecting adult nonsmokers' health. CONCLUSION: A dual-language, culturally adapted intervention targeting multigenerational Mexican-American households should address household differences regarding language and consider influences of cultural values on family dynamics and interactions with guests that may weaken bans. IMPLICATIONS: Qualitative interviews suggested cultural and family considerations to address in adapting a brief evidence-based smoke-free homes intervention for Mexican Americans, including traditional gender roles, unique contexts of multigenerational households, and language preferences. Our work confirms previous research among Latinos regarding importance of common cultural constructs, such as respeto (deference), simpatia (courtesy and agreeability), and familismo (family attachment), which inform behaviors that may impede or facilitate adopting and enforcing home smoking bans. Decision-making gender imbalances, high regard for head-of-household and guest smokers, and less sensitivity to the health of nonsmoker adults compared with children may lead to permission to smoke indoors.