HEALTHIER FINANCES FOR HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0212774
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2007
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2009
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
AUBURN UNIVERSITY
108 M. WHITE SMITH HALL
AUBURN,AL 36849

Performing Department
AGRI ECONOMICS & RURAL SOCIOL

Non Technical Summary
The proposal "Healthier Finances for Healthier Lifestyles" will be a joint effort by ACES extension agents and an economist at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. It will combine program implementation with program evaluation. Consumer Science and Personal Financial Management Program Priority Team (PPT) has implemented several programs to teach high school students and more mature constituency how to make better financial decision and improve their financial health. The proposed project will fund part of the implementation (by ACES extension agents) and the evaluation (by an economist) of two extension programs (described more below): Reality Check Simulation targeting high school students and Estate Planning Seminars targeting more mature low-income audience. While these programs have been in place for several years, their impact on participants' lives has not been evaluated. The purpose of the proposed project is to strengthen these programs by evaluating their effectiveness and develop specific steps to improve their outreach and deepen their impact. The expectation is that this process will have substantial spill over effects to other extension programs such as Investor University for older constituency planned by the Consumer Science & Personal Financial Management PPT and ACE

Animal Health Component

100%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

100%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
801	6010	3010	100%

Knowledge Area
801 - Individual and Family Resource Management;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;

Keywords

financial education

financial literacy

impact study

Goals / Objectives
1. Promote healthier lifestyles by educating Alabama next generation about the value of education and financial knowledge through Reality Check Simulation implemented by ACES. 2. Educate older constituency through Estate Planning Seminars organized by ACES with the participation of Alabama Securities Commission. 3. Modify Reality Check simulation to emphasize the role of health insurance 4. Modify Reality Check simulation to address the needs of future farmers. 5. Evaluate the effectiveness of Reality Check Simulation and of Estate Planning Seminars, suggest, test and implement improvements. 6. Improve extension agents knowledge of program evaluation. 7. Seek funding to develop more programs and maintain impact database.

Project Methods
The framework to be followed in this study is proposed by Jacobs (1988). It includes both formative and summative evaluation and consist of five stages: 1) needs assessment; 2) accountability to document who has been reached and in what way; 3) program clarification to assess strength and weaknesses and reassess goals and objectives; 4) progress toward objectives, usually done by an external evaluator with the goal to obtain objective measures of program impact, and include follow up to try to identify actions taken in congruence with program goals; and 5) program impact which builds on 4) and attempts to measure both short and long term impacts and usually requires control group or a quasi-experiment to contrast the groups with and without financial education. The evaluation process will start by creating an electronic database for a representative sample for each program and preliminary analysis to assess additional needs and document who is being reached and in what way. The extension team and the research PI will then identify strength and weaknesses and reassess the goals and objectives. Reality Check will be modified to emphasize the role of health insurance and to better meet the need of students choosing farming as an occupation. Phases 4) and 5) will consist of analyzing representative samples and comparisons with comparable control groups using quantitative regression analysis with appropriate corrections for selection bias and other data issues that may emerge. Results will be discussed with extension personnel and improvements in programs and in evaluation procedures will be designed and implemented. Data from this final round of simulations and seminars will be used to complete the final program impact analysis.

Progress 10/01/07 to 09/30/09

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The PI developed two surveys designed to improve program evaluation of two programs implemented by the ACES: 1/ Reality Check Simulation Game for high school students and 2/ Estate Planning Seminars for senior citizens. The Co-PI supervised over 81 Reality Check programs (which collected over 9000 evaluations) throughout the state and approximately 20 Estate Planning seminars mostly in rural areas with about 800 participants. PARTICIPANTS: Valentina Hartarska Wilbert Golden and extension agents supervised by him. TARGET AUDIENCES: Extension agents who used the survey and were able to collect evaluation information from 1/ Over 9000 High School Children who participated in Reality Check games 2/ Over 800 Senior citizens who participated in Estate Planning Seminars PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: While this project proposal was structured for two-years, due to changes in grant awards system it was funded for one year. As a consequence the PI could not complete the data analysis planned for the second year. The extension portion was not fully expensed due to lack of enough capacity to complete more programs/seminars and because there were other resources available.

Impacts
The new surveys developed by the PI permitted ACES extension agents to improve the Reality Check Game and Estate Planning Seminars delivery and impact. New questions on health insurance were added as a result in the Reality Check Program and the new instrument provided an avenue to test its impact. The feedback from the new instruments is specific, easy to use and understand, markedly improving agents ability to improve their own efforts.

Publications

• No publications reported this period

Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: 1. Improved the survey instrument for evaluation of Reality Check Game 2. Improved the survey instrument that evaluates the effectiveness of a seminar on retirement planning 3. Extension is now using the improved exit survey and collecting data in a more systematic manner. PARTICIPANTS: The PI has coordinated the research componet, and the extension componenet was coordinated by Wilbert Golden Regional Extension Agent Consumer Science & Personal Finance Alabama Cooperative Extension System TARGET AUDIENCES: 1. High schools students from across Alabama, 81 games conducted during FY08 2. Retirement age people from across the state PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The project was not funded for the second year due to changes in grant award procedures and budgetary constraints. The research portion was terminated after one year while the extension portion received one year no cost extension. Therefore, the research portion whereby the newly collected data from the newly designed surveys were to be analyzed could not be carried out.

Impacts
1. The improved survey instrument was used in 81 Reality Check games conducted throughout the state by extension personnel in 2008 and over 9,000 surveys have been collected. The information from the exit survey is now used by extension officers to improve their program delivery and outcomes. 2. An improved version of the survey for evaluation of retirement planning is also used by extension personnel.

Publications

• No publications reported this period