Farrow Maree, Fair Hannah, Klekociuk Shannon Z, Vickers James C
Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
PLoS One. 2022 May 4;17(5):e0267205. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267205. eCollection 2022.
Dementia is a global public health priority and risk reduction is an important pillar of the public health response. While 40% of cases are estimated to be attributable to modifiable health and lifestyle risk factors, public awareness of the evidence is low, limiting peoples' opportunity to adopt risk-reducing behaviours. To address this gap, we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational intervention, the Preventing Dementia Massive Open Online Course (PDMOOC). This mixed-methods study examined the reach and impact of the free and globally available PDMOOC, to assess its potential to provide effective dementia risk reduction education to a broad international audience. Over 100,000 individuals participated in the PDMOOC across seven iterations from 2016 to 2020, with 55,739 of these consenting to participate in research. Their mean age was 49 years (SD = 15), they came from 167 different countries, and the majority were female (86%), had completed post-secondary education (77%), lived in high-income countries (93%) and worked in health care and social assistance (63%). This demographic profile changed across time, with more men, people with higher education and people from low- and middle-income countries participating in recent course iterations. Two-thirds of participants completed the PDMOOC; completion was associated with being aged 50 to 70 years, residing in a high-income country, having tertiary education, and working in the health sector. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the PDMOOC, improved dementia risk reduction understanding and self-efficacy, increased motivation to maintain healthy lifestyles, and, importantly, application of their learning to health behaviour change with the potential to reduce their dementia risk. The PDMOOC educated a large global audience about dementia risk reduction, which contributed to participants making risk-reducing behaviour changes. This suggests MOOCs can be a successful public health strategy to improve dementia risk reduction understanding.
痴呆症是全球公共卫生的重点关注领域，降低风险是公共卫生应对措施的重要支柱。据估计，40%的病例可归因于可改变的健康和生活方式风险因素，但公众对相关证据的知晓度较低，限制了人们采取降低风险行为的机会。为了填补这一空白，我们设计、实施并评估了一项教育干预措施——预防痴呆大规模开放在线课程（PDMOOC）。这项混合方法研究考察了免费且面向全球的PDMOOC的覆盖范围和影响，以评估其为广大国际受众提供有效痴呆风险降低教育的潜力。2016年至2020年期间，超过10万人参与了PDMOOC的七次迭代，其中55739人同意参与研究。他们的平均年龄为49岁（标准差=15），来自167个不同国家，大多数为女性（86%），完成了高等教育（77%），生活在高收入国家（93%），从事医疗保健和社会援助工作（63%）。这一人口统计学特征随时间发生了变化，在最近几期课程中，参与的男性、受过高等教育的人以及来自低收入和中等收入国家的人有所增加。三分之二的参与者完成了PDMOOC；完成课程与年龄在50至70岁、居住在高收入国家、拥有高等教育以及在卫生部门工作有关。参与者对PDMOOC表示高度满意，对痴呆风险降低的理解和自我效能有所提高，保持健康生活方式的动力增强，重要的是，他们将所学应用于健康行为改变，有可能降低痴呆风险。PDMOOC对全球大量受众进行了痴呆风险降低方面的教育，这促使参与者做出降低风险的行为改变。这表明大规模开放在线课程可以成为提高痴呆风险降低认知的成功公共卫生策略。
