HEART NIH program in El Paso, Texas: Re-structuring the environment for CVD prevention and control integrating community health workers

Project HEART (Health Education Awareness Team) is a two- stage 8 year NIH-funded community-based participatory research project developed to address the high rates of cardiovascular disease and risk factors affecting the Hispanic community in El Paso Texas. This project has an ecological philosophy and conceptual framework that integrates community health workers/promotores de salud (CHW/PS) in all of the different activities. This presentation reports on the second stage 5-year intervention (including planning) component of HEART that uses an environmental approach to affect the ecological setting of two zip codes in the city of El Paso, Texas. Specifically, we present how CHW/PS are inserted into new infrastructure settings such as the YWCA and Parks and Recreation of the City to begin the –re-structuring of the environment in terms of environmental and personal nutrition and physical activity opportunities guided by a cultural-competent programming called Mi Corazon, Mi Comunidad (MICMIC) . We also describe the ecological conceptual framework that is guiding the 5-year intervention which is affecting individual participants, their families, the community, several agency partners, a community health advisory board developed for the project, the CHW/PS themselves and the policy environment for CHW/PS in EL Paso, Texas. Finally, results of a pilot study are presented that is guiding the overall approach of MICMIC and all of the re-structuring that is occurring in the two intervention zip codes and agencies like the YWCA and Parks and Recreation. Quantitative data will also be showcased as part of a community evaluation done prior to the implementation of a 3-year 2010-2012 intervention based on a telephone survey.