RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: This study investigates the efficacy and feasibility of an asynchronous, peer-to-peer health disparities enrichment course on postbaccalaureate prehealth students' knowledge, behaviors, and reaction to course materials. INTRODUCTION: Growing awareness of social inequities has prompted educators of prehealth and medical students to explore student education by addressing systemic healthcare issues. This cross-sectional study assessed reactions, learning, and self-reported behavior changes in students after taking the course "Social Determinants, Disparities, and Preparing for the Future of Healthcare" (SDDH). METHODS: The curriculum was designed by prehealth postbaccalaureate students for their peers. Course goals were to educate participants on social determinants of health and to build cultural and structural competence in their roles as future healthcare professionals. SDDH is an asynchronous, noncredit-bearing, 5-h online course with 10 modules covering various topics. The Kirkpatrick Model was used to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum, alongside qualitative and quantitative analyses of student performance. RESULTS: Out of the 102 active students in the prehealth program that accepted the invitation to join, 29 students successfully completed the course (rate of completion = 28%). On average, students expressed positive reactions and attitudes toward the course and experienced an observable increase in knowledge assessment scores upon curriculum completion (P-value = .0002). Students' self-reported observations demonstrated sustained behavioral change 3 months after course completion. CONCLUSION: It is critical to educate prehealth students on health disparities, structural, and cultural competence. A course such as SDDH may help prehealth students build effective communication skills for advocacy and develop an empathetic, patient-centered approach earlier on in their career pursuit. Some barriers to students completing the entire course include its length, uncredited status, and voluntary self-enrollment.
RESUMO
Mobile devices offer a scalable opportunity to collect longitudinal data that facilitate advances in mental health treatment to address the burden of mental health conditions in young people. Sharing these data with the research community is critical to gaining maximal value from rich data of this nature. However, the highly personal nature of the data necessitates understanding the conditions under which young people are willing to share them. To answer this question, we developed the MindKind Study, a multinational, mixed methods study that solicits young people's preferences for how their data are governed and quantifies potential participants' willingness to join under different conditions. We employed a community-based participatory approach, involving young people as stakeholders and co-researchers. At sites in India, South Africa, and the UK, we enrolled 3575 participants ages 16-24 in the mobile app-mediated quantitative study and 143 participants in the public deliberation-based qualitative study. We found that while youth participants have strong preferences for data governance, these preferences did not translate into (un)willingness to join the smartphone-based study. Participants grappled with the risks and benefits of participation as well as their desire that the "right people" access their data. Throughout the study, we recognized young people's commitment to finding solutions and co-producing research architectures to allow for more open sharing of mental health data to accelerate and derive maximal benefit from research.