School of Pharmacy
The School of Pharmacy has been involved in
the Community Outreach Partnership Center from
its inception. During that time, it has worked
with two middle schools, Margaret Milliones Middle
School in the Hill District and Reizenstein Middle
School in East Liberty. The programs were endorsed
by the principals at both of these schools. In
the early stages of the program, a focus group
of approximately 10 students from grades 6 through
8 were chosen from each school. These students
were brought to campus to provide programming
ideas. They were asked what types of programs
they would like to see in their school. While
on campus, these students participated in laboratory
experiments and computer-aided instruction in
the Schools of Pharmacy, Health Sciences and Nursing.
Based on the students requests, Pharmacy students
from Duquesne University then visited these middle
schools and helped with students science projects,
presented programs on poison prevention, first
aid and safety, and What is a Pharmacist?
This proposal seeks to expand the scope of this
Community Outreach program by (1) broadening the
population base from grades 6 through 8 to students
from K through 12 serving the Hill District and
Uptown, (2) to provide students, at appropriate
content levels for their age group, information
on health-related issues, as explained below.
The proposed programs will be presented by Pharmacy
students, but each program will be assigned to
a faculty mentor who will oversee the final design
and implementation of each program.
The first activity for the School of Pharmacy
will be education in poison prevention. The intended
audience will be kindergarten through grade 3.
This will be a puppet program geared for young
students to educate them about the dangers of
a variety of different poisons, the use of Mr.
Yuk stickers, and instruction on what to do in
case of a poisoning. This program will be presented
by Phi Lambda Sigma, the Pharmacy Leadership Society.
The second activity will be lead poisoning education
for kindergarten through grade 8, a program educating
students about the hazards of lead in the environment.
The emphasis of this program will be in understanding
where lead can be found in the environment and
how to avoid lead exposure.
The third activity will be management of childhood
asthma, K through 12. This is a program designed
to educate students on methods for coping with
asthma. The program will be geared for appropriate
age levels and will include signs and symptoms
of the disease, drugs that are used to treat the
disease and the proper use of medications for
the management of asthma.
The fourth activity will be alcohol awareness.
This video presentation, entitled "Dave's
Denial,' was produced by Phi Delta Chi, a professional
pharmacy fraternity on campus. It has been used
extensively throughout middle schools and high
schools as a means of educating young people about
the hazards of alcohol abuse among adolescents.
This will be presented to junior and senior high
school students.
The fifth activity will be anabolic steroid abuse
among adolescents. This is a video presentation
entitled Tackling Steroids, which was produced
by Phi Delta Chi, the same professional pharmacy
fraternity. The intended audience is junior high
and senior high school students. The video addresses
the attractiveness of steroids to young adults
and the health hazards associated with anabolic
steroid use.
The sixth activity will be HIV and AIDS education
awareness. This is a video presentation entitled
Consequences, also produced by Phi Delta Chi.
The intended audience is middle school, junior
high and high school students. This film attempts
to convey information needed to make intelligent
choices regarding HIV.
Sequence of Tasks
Formulation of the Student Health Guides program
will occur during the first semester of the implementation
of this grant. During this time, student focus
groups from the schools will be used to develop
final programming ideas. Pharmacy found this process
to be very helpful in implementing its past programs
at Margaret Milliones Middle School and in other
schools.
Products to be Developed and Impact Objectives
The intended outcome of the project is to increase
the awareness of health-related issues in a broad
student population. To assess the effectiveness
of these programs, questionnaires will be distributed
at the end of each program to students and administrators
who participate in these programs. The success
of this program will be measured by the total
number of students that Pharmacy students are
able to reach with these programs and the results
of the questionnaires, which will indicate an
increase in their knowledge about these health-related
issues.
Duplication and Appropriateness
No other organization is providing the types
of programs and presentations for health education
that Duquesne plans to offer. Though students
certainly learn about some (but not all) of these
subjects in health and other classes, these are
subjects that warrant repetition. Using college
students to give the instruction, in interesting
and engaging formats, helps Duquesne's prospective
pharmacists learn instructional methods, gives
them experience in using them in culturally diverse
settings, and is attractive to younger school
children.
Contact: Dr.
Douglas Bricker or call 412-396-6361
Project
History
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