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

Abstract #110054

Ana M. Navarro, PhD¹, Beatriz Barraza-Roppé², and Olga Sanchez¹. (1) Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive MC 0622, La Jolla, CA 92093-0622, (858)534-8946, anavarro@ucsd.edu, (2) Colaborativo SABER, 7581 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92108

We describe the development and implementation of an educational intervention designed to enhance the empowerment of the Latino community to build for themselves smokefree environments. An ongoing project examines the feasibility and short-term impact of the Por La Vida Taking Action (PLVTA) for Tobacco Free Communities in the Latino community in San Diego. The intervention relies on a community–based approach in which community lay health advisors (i.e. consejeras) are pivotal. A 14-week curriculum has been developed to guide group activities under the consejera's direction. The activities include: Working as a Team, Recognizing Our Achievements and Barriers, Being Responsible with Sales, Parent-Child Communication Workshop, and Tobacco-Free Communities Celebration. A total of 11 consejeras have successfully completed the PLVTA program with more than 150 project participants. Procedures utilized to assess the extent to which the intervention was implemented as intended include : (1) Attendance forms; (2) A questionnaire is completed by the consejera at the end of each session; (3) Unobtrusive observations of ongoing sessions; and (4) Debriefing meetings with consejeras to monitor progress. In addition, forms completed by consejera in the implementation of the various PLVTA activities are also collected at the completion of the 14 group sessions. The presentation describes the participatory research model used in which a consejera advisory group and an external community-academic advisory group serve as part of a highly interactive community-academic team to study effective strategies to empower our Latino community to actively plan and participate in the fight for tobacco free communities.

Learning Objectives:

• To present a participatory model for community lay health workers to be intrinsically involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of health projects.
• To describe a culturally competent program to enhance community action for tobacco free communities.

Keywords: Community Health Advisor, Participatory Research

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.