Community-Based Health Education and its Effects on African Americans

Abstract

The African American (AA) community has a high prevalence of uncontrolled chronic hypertension (HTN). In this community, a lack of health knowledge contributes to inadequate health maintenance of chronic conditions. Unmanaged HTN strongly correlates with life threatening complications in patients receiving anesthesia. A review of the literature suggests that African Americans (AAs) have increased receptibility and improved knowledge with community-based education models. Additionally, throughout the literature, preoperative anesthetic education has been shown to improve patient knowledge before undergoing surgery. Implementation of health education within areas of familiarity has shown to increase the responsiveness to health modification. Our scholarly project utilized community-based preoperative anesthetic education on HTN. This educational project evaluated the knowledge base and retention of blood pressure maintenance and the risks of perioperative HTN complications within our selected population.