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Britt Rios-Ellis, PhD, Health Science, California State University Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840, (562)985-1770, bellis@csulb.edu, Susan M. Enguidanos, PhD, USC School of Social Work, Partners in Care Foundation, 101 S. First Street, Suite 1000, Burbank, CA 91502, Farah A. Arosemena, BA, MPH (c), Department of Health Science, CSULB, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840, Rocio Leon, BS, Institute for Hispanic Health, National Council of la Raza, National Council of la Raza, 1111 19th Street Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20036, Guadalupe Berganza, Sr, Daughters of Charity, St. Francis Medical Center, 3630 E Imperial Hwy, Lynnwood, CO 90262, and Belen Sanchez, CSULB, Latino Healthcare Professionals Project, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840.
Upon immigration, many Latinas are faced with adjusting to a new culture, expectations, and language issues. The Guías de Guadalupe Project seeks to remedy various hardships experienced by Spanish speaking immigrant women by providing the education, self advocacy skills and social support often lost upon immigration. These issues, combined with low socioeconomic status and poor access to health care, often have deleterious effects on health outcomes for the infants and their mothers. Promotora models provide an excellent opportunity to alleviate the lack of culturally and linguistically specific health care hospitals are often unable to provide. In addition, pregnancy also provides an excellent opportunity to formally link Latina women and their families into the health care system. This presentation will describe the Guías de Guadalupe Promotoras Project, an effort to train and capacitate Latina mothers to serve as community leaders for expectant Spanish-speaking mothers 12 to 16 weeks pregnant. The promotoras provide pregnant immigrant Latinas with the social support, advocacy skills, and education necessary to assure optimal maternal child health during pregnancy throughout the first six months of the infant’s life. This presentation will discuss the intermediate outcomes of the project, including changes in health advocacy skills, adherence to prenatal and well child visits, incidence of depression during pregnancy, and other factors impacting maternal child health. Recommendations for the creation of culturally, linguistically and literacy level specific promotora training and program development will be presented.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Latinas, Maternal and Child Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.