Service learning for trainees through health education and screening for cardiometabolic risk

Communities with a high social vulnerability index (SVI), such as those served by our university, often suffer from difficulty accessing healthcare along with concomitantly high rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and smoking. To help mitigate these issues, our team provided free health education seminars, screening services, and giveaway items to members of the local community. This was a 2-year project that also included the goal to provide opportunities for mentored service-learning for graduate and undergraduate students. Two undergraduate students and one graduate student assisted during year 1, with two additional undergraduates joining in year 2. During the first year, the faculty led seven health education seminars focused on the components of the American Heart Association (AHA) Life's Simple 7. An eighth seminar on the importance of sleep was added in year 2, aligning with the AHA's transition to Life's Essential 8. Seminar attendees received cardiometabolic health-related educational materials and giveaway items. The health screenings included evaluations of blood pressure, body composition, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, and hemoglobin A1c, as well as assessment of physical activity, diet, and sleep via questionnaires. As the students facilitated the health screenings under faculty supervision, they gained competencies including participant communication, anthropometric measurement, vital sign assessment, body composition analysis, and survey administration. During this project, undergraduate and graduate students helped to provide health education and/or screening to 266 adults and 241 high school student participants. This program effectively served community members while offering students real-world experiences in health education and preventive care.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Free health education seminars and health screenings in an area with a high social vulnerability index offered essential preventive care to vulnerable residents while providing valuable service-learning opportunities for prehealth profession students. In addition to increasing their health screening assessment competencies, students practiced their oral communication skills through interactions with participants and played a key role in developing standard operating procedures for new laboratory equipment.