Cuidarte Es Amarte: Promoting health equity through the Latino Health for All Model

Latino communities in urban centers experience a disproportionate amount of health disparities related to chronic disease. Strategic and action planning approaches that use a CBPR approach to developing interventions can lead to innovations that promote health and prevent chronic disease in the Latino community. The Latino Health for All Model includes creation of a clear vision and mission statement, a logic model, and action plans by community residents and stakeholders from multiple sectors. It also assures intensive supports for the plan's implementation (including mini-grants and capacity building support), community mobilizers, and documentation and feedback on accomplishments for understanding and improvement. A CBPR approach was used to guide how these elements were implemented. Implementation of the initiative led to community-developed priority strategies and implementation of interventions that targeted healthy eating, physical activity and access to prevention screening. We will describe the interventions that were developed and their distribution across the socio-ecological spectrum. We used ratings of specific dimensions of the quality of interventions to develop a single potential impact score for each documented community/system change related to reducing risk for CVD and diabetes among Latinos in the targeted area. Ratings of potential impact scores incorporated related goals, behavior change strategy, duration, intended targets, and places. Based on a qualitative assessment, we will discuss how this CBPR approach contributed to the level of potential impact of this multisectoral intervention. Lessons learned and recommendations for implementing planning and action through a CBPR approach will be discussed.