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An Evaluation of Cancer Education Webinars in Alaska

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Abstract

Culturally relevant health promotion is an opportunity to reduce health inequities in the cancer burden, and online learning is an emerging avenue for health promotion. To address a desire for synchronous online cancer education, a project team offered ten 1-hr cancer education webinars for Alaska’s rural tribal health workers. The project was guided by the framework of Community-Based Participatory Action Research, honored Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and was informed by Empowerment Theory. The evaluation of this community-based intervention included end-of-webinar surveys. Between February and April 2018, 41 surveys were completed by 11 unique participants. All participants reported that, as a result of the webinars, they planned both to change their own behavior to reduce cancer risk, and to talk with their patients more often about cancer prevention strategies such as screenings, physical activity, tobacco cessation, and eating healthy. While the webinars addressed desires for synchronous actions to support cancer learning, and led to intentions to positive change behaviors, the ten webinars engaged far fewer unique learners than the team’s asynchronous cancer education modules. This experience may inform other cancer educators’ efforts to develop, implement, and evaluate online learning opportunities. Despite the small numbers, these webinars resulted in increased learners’ intent to reduce cancer risk behaviors, share cancer information, and improved learners’ capacity to talk about cancer in their communities.

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Funding

This work is part of “Distance Education to Engage Alaskan Community Health Aides in Cancer Control,” supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), award R25CA186882.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA

    Katie Cueva

  2. Community Health Aide Program, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Anchorage, AK, USA

    Melany Cueva & Michelle Hensel

  3. Clinical & Research Services, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Anchorage, AK, USA

    Laura Revels

  4. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY, USA

    Mark Dignan

Authors
  1. Katie Cueva
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  2. Melany Cueva
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  3. Laura Revels
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  4. Michelle Hensel
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  5. Mark Dignan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katie Cueva.

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Informed Consent

In accordance with the procedure recommended and approved by the Alaska Area Institutional Review Board, the University of Alaska Anchorage Institutional Review Board, and the Southcentral Foundation (SCF) Executive Committee, the cancer education evaluation surveys are research that involve the study of acceptable educational practices in a normal educational setting and are consequently not required to include informed consent.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25CA186882. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Cueva, K., Cueva, M., Revels, L. et al. An Evaluation of Cancer Education Webinars in Alaska. J Canc Educ 36, 484–490 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-019-01651-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-019-01651-x

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