Community Engagement in an African American Community during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Assessment of a Train-the-Trainer...

The purpose of this study was to produce a culturally sensitive COVID-19 curriculum for primarily African Americans related to the risks of the health impacts of COVID-19. Community engagement was initiated to deliver risk communication for COVID-19 to community trainers who, in turn, recruited and trained additional community trainers. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University Training investigators conducted training from May 2021 through January 2023. A total of twenty community trainers were trained over a two-year period for 2021 and 2023. Community trainers recruited and trained two hundred additional trainers (one hundred trainers for each year). Data were collected in Qualtrics. © and evaluated the effectiveness of the training delivered to the community trainers measuring learning gains. The differences between pre-and post-learning gains (n=146) were positive (+451 learning gains difference; average learning gain (8.8%). The pre-post median number of correct answers improved (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p<0.001). Eighteen questions (out of 35) had substantial differences in proportions at the α=.05 level (McNemar test). The overall train-the-trainer community training satisfaction survey had a mean of 4.7 (±0.7), indicating high satisfaction of the community trainers. Community trainers improved their knowledge of COVID-19 risks. These behavioral and preventative measures, such as social distancing, wearing face masks, adopting sanitation, adhering to quarantine-isolation practices, rejecting misinformation, and discussing the pros and cons of vaccinations and boosters, likely prevented some COVID-19 infections.