Promoting healthy lifestyles for chronic disease prevention among Hispanic farmworking families along the US-Mexico border: A community-academic partnership

Background: Hispanic farmworkers face severe socioeconomic disadvantages and have one of the highest burdens of chronic disease in the United States. The goal of the Campesinos Sin Fronteras (CSF), a non-profit, grassroots organization, is to serve Hispanic farmworkers and their families in Yuma County, Arizona. The organization's Familias Sanas Initiative aims to prevent chronic disease and childhood obesity through health education, outreach and referral to appropriate services. With funding support from the Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Program, the CSF and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health designed and implemented an evaluation of the Familias Sanas Project. Methods: The community and academic partners collaboratively designed the CSF Program evaluation plan using a conceptual framework of program activities and intended outcomes. Based on this framework, the partners created measures by which to evaluate program implementation and effectiveness. They also built a data management system using EpiInfo for data collection and analysis. Results: As a result of the partnership, the CSF project's capacity to conduct program evaluation has increased by utilizing specific evaluation skills. These include creating conceptual frameworks of program activities and developing appropriate indicators to measure program effectiveness, as well as collecting, managing and analyzing data. Conclusions: Partnerships between community-based organizations and academic institutions provide a valuable opportunity to increase the sustainable in-house capacity for program evaluation. These partnerships also enhance understanding of factors critical to promoting the health of Hispanic farmworking families along the U.S.-Mexico border.