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What difference a day makes The effect of
California Lobby Day 2009 on health professional
students' perceptions about affecting healthcare
reform
P. Duncan, F. Karipineni, N. Anaya-Navarro, J.
Shapiro School of Medicine, University of
California, Irvine
The Event Lobby Day 2009 (LD09)
Program Evaluation
Results
Design

• Statistically significant increase on all
  Knowledge Skill items (p lt.000)
• Overall Knowledge improvement 3.5 points (SD
  2.1)
• Skills improvement 3.4 (SD 2.1)
• Statistically significant increase on all
  Attitude items, except 1c (p lt.000)
• Median response on Item 1a-c, importance of
  healthcare reform 9
• Confidence (Item 2) increased 2.5 points (SD 1.9)
  

Description

• Pre-test (start of Training)/Post-test (upon
  completion of legislative visits)
• Likert-type scale, 1-9

• A two-day event of training, a Rally on Capitol
  steps, then Legislative visits -- in support of
  the California Universal Healthcare Act, which
  creates state-based, publicly-financed,
  single-payer universal insurance.
• Entirely created, organized and led by health
  professional students.

The Survey (29 total items)

• Knowledge (8 items)
• Single-payer universal healthcare
• The CA Universal Healthcare Act
• Message-in-a-Box
• Framing messages
• How to plan conduct legislative visit
• Ways to participate in healthcare reform

History of Lobby Day

• Began January, 2006
• Founding students from AMSA chapters on 5 UC
  medical school campuses (Davis, San Francisco,
  Berkeley, Irvine, LA) Touro

Knowledge, Mean Before After Paired values
t-test on all items p lt.000
Skill, Mean Before After Paired values t-test
on all items p lt.000
LD09 Jan 11-12, 2009 (4th annual)

• Skills (8 items)
• Discuss universal healthcare concepts
• Discussing the Bill, specifically
• Using Message-in-a-Box
• Framing discussion of the Bill
• Planning and conducting a legislative visit
• Attitudes (13 items)
• Importance of healthcare reform for
• Society
• Health professional students
• Importance of conducting legislative visit
• Confidence in conducting visit
• Learning /participating in healthcare reform
  while health student
• Incorporation of healthcare reform in
  professional student curricula

• 404 health professional students (based on Sunday
  attendance)
• 11 of 12 medical (osteopathic allopathic)
  schools plus
• Public health, nursing, dental, pre-health
  other students
• 30 campuses represented

Preparing participants Training Day

• 6-hour training combination lectures and
  breakout groups
• Specifics of the CA Universal Healthcare Act
• Messaging and Framing of UHC
• Conduct a legislative visit
• Prep time with pre-designated legislative visit
  team
• 80 teams 5-6 students/team

Discussion

• Selection bias highly motivated to participate
  in healthcare reform
• Median response for most Attitude pre-test 8 or 9
• Inexperienced
• Low level of Knowledge Skills on pre-test
• Most were making first legislative visit
• Learning (Knowledge Skills and confidence)
  improved greatly

Lobby Day Rally Legislative Visits
Results Survey response

• Response rate 61. N 248 (of 404 LD09
  participants)
• Sample representative of population (gender,
  student type)
• Gender distribution 37 male (n84) 63 female
  (n146).
• Inexperience 83 of participants making first
  legislative visit

Conclusion Further Research

• Amongst sample of students with high interest in
  healthcare reform, LD09
• Significantly improved Knowledge Skills
• Still can increase already strong Attitudes
• Further Research
• Impact of LD09 on participants profession
• How does increased K, S A make us better
  healthcare professionals?
• Impact of LD09 on likelihood to participate in
  other healthcare reform

New author Senator Mark Leno (D-3)
AMSA President Dr. Brian Hurley

• March to Capitol Rally keynote speaker Bill
  author Senator Mark Leno
• 117 Legislative visits made (of 120 total
  Legislators)
• Garnered 21 co-authorships (7 new co-authors) for
  Bill

Acknowledgements Thanks
The now four years of phenomenal student
leadership, upon which each year of Lobby Day has
become an even more amazing, fun and impactful
-- event. All 404 participants of LD09, not only
for your commitment to creating a financially
ethical healthcare financing system, but also for
establishing a new standard for what it means to
be a health professional student. Che Wankie,
MPH, for your tutelage and assistance in SPSS
Laurel Forrest, for your dogged data crunching
and Excel spreadsheet cleanup Photo credits
Justin Schreiber, OMS3, Touro and Region X
co-Trustee Tatianne Velo, MS2, UC Irvine and
Vigil leader, LD08 Victoria Flores, UC Irvine
senior and co-chair, Chicanos for Community
Medicine (CCM) Roberto Ramos, Office manager
extraordinaire, California Physicians Alliance
(CaPA) Laurel Forrest, UCLA pre-med
legislative chair