P3.K209: The Y-HEALAR Healthy Community Curriculum: Implementation of a Health Education Curriculum for Refugee Families During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Existing disparities were widened in healthcare access and education for groups most at risk for inequalities during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, including for migrant and impoverished populations. Y-HEALAR, an existing partnership between medical professionals at Yale and two New Haven-based refugee resettlement agencies, aimed to implement and assess an interactive healthcare curriculum to improve refugee healthcare knowledge on various topics during this time period.

Methods: Using the Kern approach for curriculum development, classes were developed and taught virtually by pediatric residents and medical students with real time translation in Pashto or Dari. A wide variety of topics were chosen in collaboration with community organizations. Participant knowledge acquisition and satisfaction was assessed with a retrospective pre-post test administered by phone, consisting of five to ten self-assessment questions with a 5-point Likert scale. Retrospective pre- and post-class scores were aggregated, averaged, and compared utilizing t-test analysis.

Results: Each of the 22 classes was attended by an average of 6 participants (range=3-28). Of 89 total respondents (66% response rate), 100% were female, 93% married. The majority of participants arrived in the United States over 2 years ago; 55% had no formal schooling and 89% were Medicaid recipients (Table 1). Self-perceived health topic knowledge significantly increased from pre- to post-class in all classes, with aggregate pre-class average score of 2.9±1.2 vs aggregate post-class average score of 4.3±0.9 (p < 0.001) on a 5-point Likert scale (Figure 1). 95% of respondents would recommend the class to a friend.

Conclusion: We demonstrate improvement of refugee participants’ self-assessed healthcare knowledge from pre-to post-class following participation in health education classes, an effect previously seen during the COVID-19 pandemic which has now been shown to persist throughout the post pandemic era. Our results demonstrate that an academic-community partnership between healthcare providers and community refugee organizations continues to have the potential to improve health education in refugee families.