Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Implementation of the BETTER Women Peer Health Coaching Program

The Building on Existing Tools To improvE cancer and chronic disease pRevention and screening in primary care (BETTER) Program allows patients in primary care to have a dedicated visit with a prevention practitioner to discuss chronic disease prevention and cancer screening. A prevention practitioner is a health professional, working in primary care, who has received additional training to discuss chronic disease prevention and screening and develop health goals with patients through shared decision-making. Previous studies have shown that this approach increases the number of prevention and screening actions completed by program participants. However, maintenance of health behaviour changes is difficult without on-going support. There is also some evidence that peer-delivered coaching can improve health outcomes in community settings. As such, the BETTER Women program extends the BETTER program by focusing on 40 to 68-year-old women and providing time-limited support for health behaviour change through peer health coaches. Coaches are volunteers - trained in techniques to support health behaviour change - who support women to achieve their health goals over a 6-month period. In this study, the investigators will explore: (i) whether patients who participate in health coaching after a prevention visit are more likely to increase the number of prevention and screening actions that they complete after six months, compared to women who participate in a prevention visit but do not get health coaching; (ii) whether the intervention effects endure six months after the intervention ends; and (iii) the implementation of the program to learn about factors that affect various aspects of the success and sustainability of the program.