Table 1.

Assessment of Learning Environment: Additional Quotes from Exit Interviews

Code	Representative quotes
Program Logistics
Location of training	“I liked the location. I liked that it was … held in the facility where you guys actually work and stuff. It made us feel more part of that than if you would held it somewhere neutral.” [Cohort I, Female, 58-years-old]
Provision of meals and transportation	“The food was good. There was an attempt to do healthy food. That’s always a plus because trying to get over here after work or after meeting or whatever, during that evening hour, we didn’t have to worry about trying to find dinner. You're eating on the run. So that was good to have that...the location is great. The parking is good. We didn’t have to walk very far from the parking lot to the building. It was a safe area.” [Cohort I, Female, 57-years-old]
Length/hours of training	“I think it was a good length of time for once a week. I think it was good. Any less and we wouldn’t have gotten what we needed to get to move forward outside of the class.” [Cohort I, Female, 47-years-old]
CRFT Faculty	“I was very impressed and happy that it was so many African American lecturers…it was very diverse I mean, and it was just excellent.” [Cohort II, Female, 55-years-old]
	“I just thought that the caliber of the instructors was just excellent…I had never seen such a talented group of African Americans in healthcare to take a lead on… it made me feel so good…I don’t have the words for it…because a lot of times you don’t see that, and you don’t see African Americans of that caliber taking the kind of interest that that group has taken in our community. And it was just wonderful.” [Cohort I, Female, 65-years-old]
Participant Diversity	“I think it was excellent because, again, there were a variety of people from different disciplines, educational levels, men and women, people who had no experience in taking college courses and people who had been to graduate school. I thought that represented the core of community based research, that you had people from different backgrounds. [Cohort I, Female, 64-years-old]
Break-Out Groups
Small group learning environment	“Well I was a lot more involved too in the breakout groups…I felt like I could say more and be more involved in the small groups. So that was good.” [Cohort II, Female, 25-years-old]
Interaction with other Fellows	“It gave me an opportunity to interact with more people, different people who didn’t have my beliefs. So things like that. So it gave me an opportunity to actually interact with a lot of different people from different backgrounds in the community.” [Cohort I, Female, 65-years-old]
Homework Assignments
Application of course material	“The homework assignments on the surface seemed easy, but then the lesson that we learned from them was more than that …it would seem like a little simple task, but just the impact of the lessons was awesome.” [Cohort II, female, 56-years-old]
Community focus	“No, I thought they were really good. It actually got us to think about what it was that we were going over and getting out into the community to do some great things.” [Cohort II, Male, 41-years-old]
	“One of the things that I really enjoyed was the PhotoVoice and the Windshield Survey. I was able to look at the community and the environment in a different lens so to speak. It’s just not driving through a community but being able to look at key factors and key things that help with the disparities and with social inequalities in regards to access to health.” [Cohort I, Female, 39-years-old]