Engaging Latino Day Laborers in Community-Based Health Education Interventions

California's Latino day laborers rarely find vehicles to speak about their health care needs and concerns – to other laborers, to service providers, and the general public. As such, the health care concerns and motivations of day laborers, and their potential as change agents have been largely neglected in health research and interventions. Through university-community partnership, our over-arching goal is to increase the capacity of day laborers to voice their health care concerns and needs and influence health education and outreach efforts. Faculty from SFSU have partnered with staff and day laborers in San Mateo and Sonoma counties. The team worked together to develop the questions that would be asked during focus groups and the human subjects proposal. Further, the community partners have assisted in recruitment of day laborers to participate in the focus groups and to develop the subsequent health education interventions. Focus group data were jointly analyzed to develop health education interventions at each site. Interventions were planned by staff and day laborers at each of the sites and were unique to the needs of the day laborers at each site. Graduate students were involved in data analysis and assisting in development of health education interventions. The partnership has brought together faculty, community members, and students to empower this vulnerable population in identifying their health education needs and in providing a mechanism whereby day laborers can give voice to their needs and develop interventions that address the needs they have identified.