Abstracts

Rationale: A chronic neurological disease known by unprovoked seizures, epilepsy impacts more than three million Americans. Racial and ethnic populations may not develop epilepsy more than Caucasians but many racial minorities living with epilepsy have poorer health outcomes. Epilepsy disparities among racial and ethnic populations exists due to lack of access to epilepsy specialists, lower efficacy of epilepsy self-management and lack of education and awareness about epilepsy. There is a need to increase epilepsy education and awareness among racial and ethnic communities, especially in the African American population. To ensure culturally competent and appropriate adaption of epilepsy education in African American communities, the Epilepsy Foundation (EF) collaborated with national and local minority health agencies to increase epilepsy outreach in minority communities to pilot a Minority Outreach Program. Methods: By partnering with the National Association of State Offices of Minority Health (NASOMH), the Foundation identified community-based organizations (CBO) through a competitive process in the following eight states: Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Georgia. During a nine-month campaign, the CBOs were provided epilepsy education training; connected to state EF chapters and affiliates; provided resources and materials; offered technical assistance; and received evaluation guidance. The CBOs utilized existing community-engagement approaches to integrate epilepsy awareness into public, provider and patient education activities within African American communities. To encourage social media participation, the hashtag #EpilepsyEquity was established to track online epilepsy outreach to minority communities thorough social media engagement. Results: The eight CBOs have posted more than 200 epilepsy social media messages with the #EpilepsyEquity hashtag reaching more than 400,000 individuals. In Maryland, a 30-second epilepsy public service announcement aired on two urban radio stations with a reach of 37,000 individuals. By providing seizure first aid trainings to school health personnel, as well as senior aging professionals and nurses, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois CBOs offered epilepsy education to 307 minority health providers. Through community forums, health fairs and more, the preliminarily results show impact of nearly 1,900. Future activities include a short video featuring African Americans living with epilepsy for use in Indiana and an inaugural Epilepsy Awareness Walk in Illinois. Conclusions: By working directly with minority health community-level agencies with inroads within African American communities, the Minority Health Outreach Program was able to have a significant reach in a short period of time. The CBOs associated with the program have established sustainable relationships with epilepsy experts within their states and communities to increase the linkages of African American epilepsy patients to care in efforts to support the self-management of their condition. The community-based approach to health education to address disparities is an effective methodology for improving the health outcomes of racial and ethnic populations affected by epilepsy. Funding: Funding for this program is made possible with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under cooperative agreement number 1U58DP0026256-03-00, CFDA 93.850. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the CDC.