Are Podcasts Effective at Educating African American Men About Diabetes?

• Published in: American journal of men's health Vol. 6; no. 5; pp. 365 - 367
• Main Authors: Johnson, Jarrett, Ross, Levi, Iwanenko, Walter, Schiffert, Judith, Sen, Arup
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2012; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Adult; African Americans; African Americans - psychology; Data Collection; Diabetes; Diabetes Mellitus; Digital broadcasting; Education; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Inner city; Knowledge; Male; Middle Aged; Patient Education as Topic; Podcasts; Urban Population; Webcasts as Topic; Young Adult; health education; health awareness; diabetes; men of color
• ISSN: 1557-9883; 1557-9891
• DOI: 10.1177/1557988312444717

Education is a critical component of the National Blueprint to eliminate racial disparities in diabetes. Research indicates that traditional methods of diabetes education has had limited effectiveness with minority populations and suggests that different educational approaches be explored. The purpose of the research was to explore the effectiveness of an emergent technology (podcast) for use in educating inner-city, African American men about diabetes prevention. Thirty African American men participated in self-administered, pretest–posttest surveys in August 2009. Surveys collected information on demographic characteristics, perceptions of diabetes, and diabetes knowledge. Paired samples t test was computed to evaluate pretest–posttest changes in overall knowledge. McNemar or binomial tests were computed to evaluate pretest–posttest knowledge changes on each of the 15 individual knowledge items. Diabetes knowledge scores for the sample increased from 8.27 at pretest to 10.47 at posttest (p = .001). Posttest knowledge scores increased for 77% of men, stayed the same for 13%, and decreased for 10%. Men who listened to the podcast correctly answered 40% more knowledge questions on their posttest assessments. Results from this exploratory study suggest that podcasts are useful for helping inner-city, African American men recall diabetes prevention information. Additional research is recommended with larger randomly selected samples using more rigorous research designs.