The East Side Village Health Worker Partnership is a community-based participatory research and intervention effort on Detroit’s east side. Members of the partnerships include the Butzel Family Center, Detroit Health Department, Kettering-Butzel Health Initiative, Friends of Parkside, Henry Ford Health System, Warren Conner Development Coalition, Islandview Development Corporation, VISIONS, the East Side Parish Nurse Network and over 30 community residents known as Village Health Workers. This presentation will focus on the development of the Healthy Eating and Exercising to reduce Diabetes Project (HEED) that developed out of the priority of preventing and reducing the negative side effects of diabetes on Detroit's east side. The HEED project, funded by the Michigan Women's Foundation in 2000, was formed to address diabetes by providing information and developing skills among community members to provide information and support for community members. Ten community members completed the HEED training in its first year. Following that initial training, they developed a series of community initiatives including: presentations at local organizations, walking clubs, healthy eating demonstrations, and a mini-market designed to bring fresh low-cost produce into the east side, where access to such produce at reasonable prices is an ongoing challenge for community members. This presentation will describe results from the evaluation of the first year of the project, discuss challenges and facilitating factors, and discuss long term sustainability of the project.
Learning Objectives: 1. Identify challenges of implementing a program to prevent and reduce the negative side effects of diabetes on Detroit's east side. 2. Describe issues affecting the long-term sustainability of a community-based program to prevent diabetes.
Keywords: Lay Health Workers, Diabetes
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.