Abstract for: Virtual Group Model Building Activities aimed at Understanding Facilitators and Barriers to Men’s Healthcare Service Engagement & Retention

Engaging and retaining men in healthcare services is a challenge and remains understudied. Men have low use of service utilization, medical compliance, and low enrollment into pivotal research studies. This work will apply virtual group model building activities to solicit key facilitators and barriers to men’s healthcare service from a group of multidisciplinary providers. This work applied virtual group model building activities to identify facilitators and barriers to men’s healthcare service from a group of multidisciplinary providers from a large, academic health system. Three system thinking activities were applied in a virtual setting to 1.) solicit variables through the 5Rs Framework, 2.) determine variable behavior leveraging Behavior Over Time Graphs (BOTG), and 3.) create a shared mental model through a Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD). A causal loop diagram exposed barrier domains of affordably, fear, and delayed care. Key facilitator domains identified were self-awareness and empowerment, provider trust, and comprehensive and efficient care. Participants highlighted a multidisciplinary care team could reinforce a virtuous cycle of health seeking and healthcare visits among men. This system dynamics qualitative modeling exercise successfully captured various mental models from a group of multidisciplinary providers and administrators in a large, urban academic health system virtually. Despite limiting factors to health seeking behaviors like employment security, income stability, and efficient healthcare visit, men who see a multidisciplinary care team can breed provider trust, increase visit efficiency, decrease fears, and promote self-efficacy through increasing health literacy and knowledge.