An effective community-academic partnership to extend the reach of screenings for fall risk

Older adults should be screened for fall risk annually. Community providers (people without formal medical training who work with older adults in senior centers or aging services) may be a viable group to expand the reach of screenings. Our community-academic partnership developed a program to increase and assess fall risk screenings by community providers. Community sites hosted training workshops and screening events. Community screenings were well attended and received by providers and older adults. With administrative support from the regional fall prevention coalition and technical support from academia, community providers screened 161 older adults from a broad geographic area. Twenty-one community providers completed the training. Knowledge and confidence surveys demonstrated improvements before and after training (P<.001). Skills assessments demonstrated mastery of most skills, but some providers required additional training. Provider feedback indicated screening procedures were complex. Future projects will examine this model using simplified screening procedures.