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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Jennifer Crowe, MPH¹, Ricardo Garcia, BA², Eric Leber, PhD³, Vickie Ybarra, RN, MPH⁴, Maria Benavides, BA⁵, James Birge, MD⁴, Madelyn Carlson⁵, Elizabeth Hom, BS, MPH(c)¹, Julie Postma, RN, BSN, PhC⁶, Julie Ricking, MD⁴, Mary Salazar, PhD⁷, Yolanda Anita Sanchez, BS, MS candidate⁸, Guadalupe Sotelo², Sandy Wells, BSN, MSN⁹, and Matthew Keifer, MD, MPH⁸. (1) Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357234, Seattle, WA 98195, 206-616-5056, jencrowe@u.washington.edu, (2) Northwest Community Education Center/Radio KDNA, P.O. Box 800, Granger, WA 98932, (3) College of Arts and Sciences, Heritage University, 3240 Fort Rd., Toppenish, WA 98948, (4) Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, 402 N. 4th St., Suite 202, Yakima, WA 98901, (5) Northwest Community Action Center, P.O. Box 831, Toppenish, WA 98948, (6) Department of Psychosocial and Community Health, Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Program, University of Washington School of Nursing, 14327 26th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98125, (7) School of Nursing, University of Washington, Box 357234, Seattle, WA 98195, (8) Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357234, Seattle, WA 98195-3770, (9) Nursing, Heritage University, 3240 Fort Rd, Toppenish, WA 98948

El Proyecto Bienestar is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project addressing environmental justice issues affecting Hispanic agricultural workers and their families in the Yakima Valley, Washington. The project's main goal is to develop strategies that will enable the Hispanic community to effectively respond to the many occupational and environmental risks related to agricultural work. This presentation will outline the steps taken by the four community partners: Heritage University, Northwest Community Education Center/Radio KDNA, the University of Washington, and the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic/Northwest Community Action Center together with the Community Advisory Board (CAB) to achieve their goal. Rather than begin with a specific issue in mind, El Proyecto Bienestar set out to form a partnership that could use CBPR to identify issues of concern, prioritize them and create an action plan to address the prioritized issues. This process was new to most of the people involved in the project and this presentation will specify the challenges we have faced thus far. We will then describe both the mistakes we have made and the successes we have had in facing those challenges. Presenters will also share the structures and processes that Proyecto Bienestar has used to collect data, communicate results and communicate project activities. Specifically, representatives of the project will talk about their experiences with a Town Hall meeting to present data collected by the project, the process used by the CAB to prioritize issues, and the formation of an issues-driven action plan for continuing the work of Proyecto Bienestar.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be able to

• Understand community and researcher perspectives on partnership formation to do community based participatory research in the Yakima Valley.
• Describe structures and processes that can lead to successful identification and prioritization of environmental and occupational health issues for action and further research by a community.
• Identify the biggest challenges in collecting and communicating data and project activities using the CBPR model and develop strategies for overcoming those challenges.

Keywords: Community-Based Public Health, Agricultural Work Safety

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No