Elderly Minority Peer Counseling for Health Education

211 Brief communication ELDERLY MINORITY PEER COUNSELING FOR HEALTH EDUCATION To the editor: The Journal's concern for the health of elderly populations is timely and important. Here at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the health of the minority elderly population is of particular concern. As authors Butler and Hyer point out [Vol. 1, No. 1:156-168], elderly blacks are at special risk because of their higher prevalence of living alone, higher incidence of chronic health problems, and higher poverty rates. Our Peer Minority Education Project seeks to help remedy the historical paucity of health-promotion programs for this population by using minority peer counselors to teach their friends and neighbors about such topics as hypertension and diet modification. With funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation through National Center for Rural Elderly at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, we conducted preliminary research on peer minority training, then contacted a local senior citizen center which recruited 15 participants . Participants were introducted to the Project at a meeting at a local public library, where they viewed a videotape, produced by Texas A&M University, on hypertension and nutrition, and subsequently developed their own highly personalized peer-training programs. These programs, presented at participants ' homes and other meeting places, have been extremely well received by both peer counselors and their audiences. We believe the Project enables minorities to maintain the respect and selfesteem that is sometimes absent in programs administered by educators insensitive to this population. At the same time, elderly minorities receive services they deserve. This novel approach to bringing health education to minority senior citizens appears to be successful and worthy of replication in other communities. —Gene Robertson, Ph.D. Chair, Community Development Department Director, National Network on Minority Elderly University of Missouri 728 Clark Hall Columbia 65211 Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undersewed, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1990 ...