Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #104525

Frances Brazzell, OT/L, MA, MS, College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, PO Box 210207, Tucson, AZ 85721-0207, 520-626-4949, franbraz@email.arizona.edu

Nuestra Comunidad Nuestra Salud is an interdisciplinary rural health-training program located in a predominately Mexican origin community in Nogales, Arizona on the border of Mexico, in which health care students participate and work with promotoras de salud. One strategy to eliminate healthcare disparities for the Mexican origin population is to train care providers to become more culturally competent through experiential fieldwork in Mexican American communities where they work with promotoras de salud as “cultural brokers”. The literature states that Mexican American cultural brokers can help guide healthcare providers in understanding and interpreting what is seen and experienced because the cultural broker is part of the community, raised in the culture and fluent in the local language and dialect and is also comfortable in the predominately-Anglo healthcare culture. This research specifically explored the promotoras' perceptions of their role with students and the students' perception of the promotora role in addition to exploring the general cultural competence knowledge students gained as a result of participation in the program. The research indicated that many students were not able to capitalize on the promotoras' skills as cultural brokers or cultural experts. Possible explanations include a lack of foundational attitude and skill based training about cultural competency in general, a lack of cultural competency knowledge specific to the Mexican origin population and a lack of understanding of the promotora role on the part of the students and the promotoras themselves.

Learning Objectives:

• • Describe specific role expectations of promotoras de salud
• • Define the "promotora as cultural broker” paradigm
• • Assess programmatic barriers to the effective use of cultural brokers as a culturally-appropriate strategy for improving Latino health

Keywords: Latinos, Cultural Competency

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.