science paper 32

Before you design any nutrition education intervention, whether it is a few sessions or a larger program with several components, it is important to determine your intervention focus and identify your intended primary audience. When those have been determined, you will need detailed information on the behaviors and practices that contribute to the issue or problem you have selected as your intervention focus. Step 1 worksheets will help you conduct assessments to obtain the information you will need.

Think of yourself as a detective as you work through these worksheets. You are trying to find out as much as you can to determine which core behaviors or behavioral goals will be the targets for your educational sessions.

The information you collect may be quite extensive, depending on the scope and duration of your intervention, and will vary by category. Cite information sources (e.g., journal article, government report, observation, interview) used in the worksheet in a bibliography at the end of this step.

At the end of the Step 1 worksheets, you should have products for Steps 1A, 1B, and 1C as follows:

Step 1A:      Health issues or needs (one or two) and primary intended audience for the nutrition education intervention. Examples are “overweight in teenagers” or “low rates of breastfeeding in a low-income audience.”

Step 1B:      High-priority behaviors contributing to the selected issues. A set of one to a few nutrition-related behaviors or community practices that contribute to the health issue(s) that you identified.

Step 1C:      Statement of the program’s behavioral or action goals. The behavioral or action goals describe the purpose or behavioral outcomes for the program in terms of behaviors or community practices.

Use these worksheets as guides to help you identify program behavioral goals. Cite information sources in the text and add references to the bibliography at the end of the step. Electronic versions of these worksheets are available
at http://nutrition.jbpub.com/education/2e. If you are unable to access the worksheets electronically, you can write onto this blank worksheet or create a text document that uses the same flow of information.

Describe the demographics of your audience (e.g., age, subgroup, ethnicity) and the location of the site.

Analyze the priority health issues for your audience.

Determine one or two priority health issues for the program to address. From the issues you identified, prioritize based on greatest need, whether education can help, the importance to the audience, and importance to the organization.

Identify the behaviors or practices that contribute to the priority health issues.

List the top behaviors or practices that contribute to the priority health issues. Then rate each issue on importance, modifiability, feasibility, and desirability.

*Consider complexity, relative advantage, compatibility, and observability of behavior.

Choose one or a few behavioral goals from the list above to be the focus of your program. State the selected behavioral goals and provide justification for the selection of your focus behaviors or community practices.

In Step 2, you will find out as much as possible about why audience members make the food and activity choices they do as well as what might motivate, facilitate, and support them to take on the goal behaviors. Theory provides you with the framework to ask the questions and organize the answers.

At the end of the Step 2 worksheets, you should have the following products for Steps 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, and 2E:

Step 2A:      Description of the sociocultural environment in which your audience lives.

Step 2B:      List of current behaviors, practices, policies, and environmental factors that are assets for the audience’s achievement of the program goal behaviors.

Step 2C:      List of thoughts, feelings, and skills that are rooted in theory that potentially mediate the audience’s motivation for and ability to achieve the program’s goal behaviors or community practices.

Step 2D:      List of potential actions for the program to take to provide environment and policy supports for the audience’s achievement of the program goal behaviors.

Step 2E:      Description of audience characteristics and list of resource considerations that will help you plan the practical aspects of your program.

Use these worksheets as guides to help you identify the personal mediators and environmental determinants of change. Cite information sources in the text and add references to the bibliography at the end of the step. Electronic versions of these worksheets are available at http://nutrition.jbpub.com/education/2e/. If you are unable to access the worksheets electronically, you can write onto this blank worksheet or create a text document that uses the same flow of information.

Describe the social and cultural environment of the audience with respect to your goal behaviors. Consider the following questions: What is their life stage (e.g., teen, senior, mother), and how does this stage influence their eating and activity patterns? What is their living situation, and how does this influence their eating and activity patterns? What are the cultural beliefs that influence their eating and activity patterns? How does their lifestyle (e.g., work, family, recreation, social obligations) influence their ability to make healthy food and activity choices? How do their religious beliefs influence their eating and activity patterns?

Identify existing behaviors, practices, environmental factors, and policies that support your goal behaviors.

Find out about your audience’s thoughts and feelings related to the motivational mediators listed below from psychosocial theories.

Find out about your audience’s knowledge, skills, and other factors from theory listed below.

Find out how you could change the environmental and policy supports listed below to facilitate your intended audience in performing your goal behaviors.

Add details about your audience that are important