Creating dementia-friendly communities: Challenging stigma and building understanding through public education

Stigma is a well-documented barrier to community and social engagement for people living with dementia. Awareness raising and public education have been identified as essential for developing communities that are supportive of people living with dementia and enable their social inclusion. A public dementia education program, co-designed and delivered by people living with dementia and targeted to people working in public-facing service roles, was developed to increase awareness of dementia and challenge stigma. This quality improvement study evaluates this dementia-friendly community education program in terms of participants’ reactions to the program, knowledge acquisition, change in behavior, and impacts associated with the program. A survey methodology was used to assess immediate reactions to the workshop (N = 110), and at a three-month follow-up to assess longer-term impacts of the program (N = 36). The workshop was well received with >88% of respondents being satisfied with the topics covered, delivery format, and program materials; >65% of respondents reported being more knowledgeable in all workshop topic areas as a result of the program. At follow-up, >80% of respondents reported that they implemented dementia-friendly actions as outlined in the workshop but were able do so more frequently for individual-level actions, rather than organizational-level actions. Respondents valued hearing the experiences of a person with lived experience. The study findings highlight the value of practical education targeted to public service sector personnel and codesigned and delivered by people living with dementia as a strategy for fostering change towards more dementia-friendly communities. Targeting leadership and management may affect greater change at organizational levels.