Road to Health Initiative: A Creative Strategy to Increase Health Care Access to Underserved Latino Populations in Los Angeles County

More than forty percent of Los Angeles County's (LAC) estimated 10 million residents are of Latino origin. A large number of these residents do not have regular access to prevention services, health care or medical insurance. Consequently, the LAC Department of Public Health's (LAC/DPH) Binational Border Health Program (BBHP) created, in 2002, the “Road to Health” Initiative. The goal was to provide information to the Latin American population about health services that LAC offers and to educate this community on health promotion and disease prevention and control.

Collaborations were built with ten Latin American Consulates (Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru), several community-based organizations and various programs within LAC/DPH to increase health care access and prevent disease. A total of 300k people were reached through 11,000 educational sessions given at the Consulates, alone, between 2002 and 2005.

Other community presentations, including health fairs and preschools, increased the numbers of people reached by another 31k. Twenty five percent of the people reached at the Consulates now have access to the Health Care System and a survey conducted revealed an increase of knowledge from thirty to sixty percent.

This presentation will share lessons learned as well as how this initiative helped BBHP reach a vulnerable population through: (1) mobilizing partnerships to improve health care access, and (2) collaborating with internal and external partners to inform, educate, and empower Latin American communities about health promotion and disease prevention and control.