Abstract
Objective
Seven million US children lack health insurance. Community health workers are effective
in insuring uninsured children, and parent mentors (PMs) in improving asthmatic children's
outcomes. It is unknown, however, whether a training program can result in PMs acquiring
knowledge/skills to insure uninsured children. The study aim was to determine whether
a PM training program results in improved knowledge/skills regarding insuring uninsured
minority children.
Methods
Minority parents in a primary-care clinic who already had Medicaid/Children's Health
Insurance Program (CHIP)-covered children were selected as PMs, attending a 2-day
training session addressing 9 topics. A 33-item pretraining test assessed knowledge/skills
regarding Medicaid/CHIP, the application process, and medical homes. A 46-item posttest
contained the same 33 pretest items (ordered differently) and 13 Likert-scale questions
on training satisfaction.
Results
All 15 PMs were female and nonwhite, 60% were unemployed, and the mean annual income
was $20,913. After training, overall test scores (0–100 scale) significantly increased,
from a mean of 62 (range 39–82) to 88 (range 67–100) (P < .01), and the number of wrong answers decreased (mean reduction 8; P < .01). Significant improvements occurred in 6 of 9 topics, and 100% of PMs reported
being very satisfied (86%) or satisfied (14%) with the training. Preliminary data
indicate PMs are significantly more effective than traditional Medicaid/CHIP outreach/enrollment
in insuring uninsured minority children.
Conclusions
A PM training program resulted in significant improvements in knowledge and skills
regarding outreach to and enrollment of uninsured, Medicaid/CHIP-eligible children,
with high levels of satisfaction with the training. This PM training program might
be a useful model for training Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act navigators.
Keywords
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References
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: November 30, 2014
Accepted:
September 13,
2014
Received:
May 29,
2014
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
