KDH Research & Communication (KDHRC) proposes to develop and evaluate Intervention to
Help Orient Men to Excel (IN-HOME), which will train community health workers (CHW) to
support African American and Latino male caregivers of older adults. IN-HOME-trained CHWs
will conduct outreach with caregivers who will gain the knowledge and skills to protect their own
health and optimize outcomes for the older adults in turn.
Caregiving is more common in racial and ethnically diverse populations than in white
populations. While cultural underpinnings may make caregiving more common, service as a
caregiver can nonetheless have negative consequences, with a substantial risk of negative
emotional, mental, and physical health outcomes. And although numbering in the millions, male
minority caregivers are generally overlooked by current supportive resources.
CHWs are ideally positioned to educate and support diverse caregivers due to deeply
established connections to their communities and the proven effectiveness of CHW outreach for
positive behavior change, including reaching men with health-changing information and skills-
development. Therefore, IN-HOME will train CHWs to conduct effective outreach to male
minority caregivers, empowering such caregivers with self-care strategies and skills to benefit
the older adults they care for.
The IN-HOME prototype will consist of the introduction and two full online course lessons with
text, animatics, and rough-cut interactive learning experiences. In Phase I, we will develop the IN-
HOME prototype with feedback from a steering committee in alignment with CHW best
practices, the needs of African American and Latino male caregivers, and scientifically accurate
information. We will evaluate the IN-HOME prototype in a randomized, two-group study that
empirically assesses knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy among CHWs to equip informal
caregivers to support older adults and implement self-care strategies after prototype exposure.
The Phase I project will prepare us for Phase II expansion and a rigorous randomized controlled
trial of the impact of CHW outreach on minority male caregivers. When complete, IN-HOME
will be marketed through KDHRC’s robust sales system that uses email and interpersonal
outreach to promote and support adoption of our suite of CHW/promotores training programs.
IN-HOME is innovative because it will reach an underserved, at-need population with a
culturally competent intervention that will improve quality of life among minority male
caregivers and older adults in their care.