WISEWOMAN Program Locations
Pennsylvania

Background: The Pennsylvania Department of Health was funded as a standard program in June 2008.

Lifestyle Intervention:  Pennsylvania will use core elements from A New Leaf...Choices for Healthy Living to help women develop a healthier diet, increase physical activity, and be tobacco free. Core elements include risk assessments of diet, physical activity, and smoking; tailored feedback; goal-setting and action planning; guidelines and strategies that help participants overcome barriers to healthy eating, increasing physical activity, and smoking cessation; follow-up and reinforcement to assess progress in reaching, and opportunities for setting new goals; and social support encouragement for sustained lifestyle change. The program strives to develop relationships with community partners to provide safe and secure activities in client neighborhoods or through other venues, which will continue to be easily incorporated into the clients’ daily activity. The program assists clients in finding appropriate interventions that fit within the client goals and particular learning style, to make long-lasting behavior changes.

Screening: Risk factor screening includes blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol and other lipids, as well as assessment of weight, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, personal and family medical history, tobacco use, diet, and physical activity.

Sites: Health care provider sites that screen clients for the Pennsylvania HealthyWoman Program provide screening services in urban and rural counties including: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Clarion, Elk, Erie, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Philadelphia, Venango, and Westmoreland. The lifestyle interventions are provided by screening sites, telephone counseling services, local community organizations, or other venues as appropriate.

Key Partners: The Department's HealthyWoman Program, Drexel University, American Heart Association, Alliance of PA Councils, Inc.

For more information, please contact: Diane J. Ollivier WISEWOMAN Program Manager Division of Health Risk Reduction Pennsylvania Department of Health Health and Welfare Building 625 Forster St, Rm. 1008 Harrisburg, PA  17120 Phone: (717) 787-5900 Fax: (717) 783-5498 E-mail: dollivier@state.pa.us Check out Pennsylvania's Department of Health at http://www.portal.health.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/ department_of_health_home/17457

Success Story

• WISEWOMAN Success Story: Pennsylvania Program Casts a Wider Net at Health Screenings [PDF-755K]

Program Highlights

Direct Services

• The Pennsylvania WISEWOMAN program grew from two screening sites in 2008 to 21 in 2009. The program conducted 1,560 screenings during the 2009–2010 reporting period, exceeding its screening goal by 56%.¹
• The Pennsylvania WISEWOMAN program conducted 1,640 lifestyle intervention sessions during the 2009–2010 reporting period.

Partnerships

• The Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Network focuses on promoting healthy food choices to low‐income Pennsylvanians of all ages and encourages individuals and families to adopt positive, sustainable diet‐related behaviors. The Pennsylvania WISEWOMAN program is partnering with the Network to expand a database of nutrition education programs. Once this database is populated, provider sites will have a current listing of resources to provide women instead of pre-printed materials that become quickly outdated.

Evaluation

• The preliminary evaluation of the Pennsylvania WISEWOMAN program indicated a need to orient health care center administrative staff about the WISEWOMAN program to improve program promotion, outreach, and recruitment. In 2010, a telephone survey was created based upon the Organizational Change Model to determine current orientation procedures and the recommended orientation content and processes. The survey was concept-tested with experts at the Pennsylvania Department of Health to assess content and feasibility of administration. As of January 2011, 90% of the telephone interviews were completed, and the program plans to use the results to design an orientation tool in the next fiscal year.

Reference

1. Data are reported from the preliminary WISEWOMAN Minimum Data Elements report (October 2010). Screening includes any WISEWOMAN-funded screening (blood pressure, cholesterol, or diabetes) provided from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010. Lifestyle interventions refer to the number of lifestyle intervention sessions conducted from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010.