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

Abstract #110180

Ana M. Navarro, PhD¹, Cheryl L. Rock, PhD, RD², Marianne A. McKennett, MD¹, and Rema Raman, PhD¹. (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) Cancer Prevention and Control Program, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0901, La Jolla, CA 92093-0901

The Por La Vida (PLV) intervention model relies on lay health advisors and has evolved as an effort to address health disparities in the Latino community. The PLV Cuidándome project has developed two curricula that focus on breast and cervical cancer screening and nutrition cancer control, respectively. The project is being implemented in San Diego, California targeting the Latino community of low socio-economic level and low level of aculturation. Both curricula include a series of 12 weekly educational sessions that are conducted in small groups by trained community lay health workers (i.e., consejeras). A total of 27 groups have been conducted by their respective consejeras with an average of 14 participants per group. Main outcomes of the intervention are recency of breast and cervical cancer screening tests and fruit and vegetable daily consumption. Telephone interviews have been completed at pretest and posttest (i.e., 6 months after pretest). The results indicate that participants in both cancer screening and nutrition groups have increased the use of breast and cervical cancer screening tests from pretest to posttest. However, the increases are higher in the cancer screening Women and Cancer groups compared to the Nutrition and Cancer groups. Similarly, knowledge and self-reported behaviors relevant to consumption of fruits and vegetables has improved more over time in the nutrition and cancer groups compared to the cancer screening educational groups.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key components of a nutrition and cancer screening program successfully implemented in the underserved Latino community.
• Describe evaluation strategies to assess the implementation and impact of the program.

Keywords: Community Health Advisor, Health Promotion

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.