229696 Promotores de Salud: The front line of defense in combating childhood obesity to reduce the chronic disease burden among Latino families

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, PhD, MPH , Institute for Prevention Research, University of Southern California, Alhambra, CA
Paula Amezola, MPH , Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA
Lupe Gonzalez , Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
Tania Barreno, MPH , Patient Education and Community Outreach Center, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Southern California, USC, Los Angeles, CA
Camille Dennard, MPH , Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California, USC, Alhambra, CA
Purpose: Obesity is a serious risk factor for many chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, cancer). Children and youth in the Latino community face potential for a shorter life span than their parents - accompanied by disease- due in part to childhood obesity. Promotores de salud have always been in the Latino community one of the most important resources for outreach and education. They now stand as the front line of defense to combat this epidemic in our Latino community. Several programs at the USC Childhood Obesity Research Center (CORC) (the Center of Excellence for Minority Youth and the Transdisciplinary Research Center on Energetics and Cancer (TREC)) support the translation of the most up to date scientific findings to community workers for the prompt delivery into grass roots level public health education efforts. Methods: Through a community based participatory collaboration, the University of Southern California CORC (academic partner) and Esperanza Community Housing Corporation (ECHC) (a social justice non-profit community based organization who is our community partner) have been conducting capacity building among promotores de salud to disseminate state-of the art scientific information on childhood obesity. Our goal is to shorten the time between scientific discovery and delivery of life saving information and messages at the community level. Results: We present evaluation results from our various joint efforts and discuss the outcomes of the dissemination of information effort. Results point to increased advocacy among pomotores de salud, helping to shape what is consumed in the schools and communities; increasing access to healthy food choices and reducing access to unhealthy competitive products. We discuss our participatory model and the impact of our partnership on combating Latino childhood obesity.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Advocacy for health and health education
Chronic disease management and prevention
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
1) Discuss a model of participatory efforts between community and academia to bridge the information gap and more quickly accelerate the transfer of knowledge from discovery to delivery regarding Latino childhood obesity to combat a mayor risk factor for chronic disease. 2) Analyze the most relevant program evaluation data from our community/academic participatory efforts regarding the impact of promotores de salud to help curb the obesity epidemic among Latino children and youth and decrease the burden of chronic disease among Latino families

Keywords: Obesity, Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been conducting research and projects for over 20 years in Latino public health. I have experience working with promotores de salud in the Latino community. I am a public health scientific information broker, often serving as a bridge between communities and academia.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.