243413 Sustainability in CHW Community Programs

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Matilde Alvarado, MS; RN , Division for the Application of Research Discoveries (DARD), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Bethesda, MD
Esperanza Vasquez, Promotora , Centro San Vicente, Clinic, El Paso, TX
Hector Balcazar, MS, PhD , El Paso, Regional Campus, UT Health Science Center-School of Public Health, EL Paso, TX
J. Nell Brownstein, PhD , Division for the Prevention of Heart Disease and Stroke, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
Background: Salud para su Corazón (SPSC) is an established community based heart health initiative created by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to increase awareness and promote lifestyle changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors among Latinos. The SPSC is built around the promotores de salud model. Trained promotores deliver heart health education to individuals and families. A variety of SPSC community interventions have been implemented using a combination of research designs and public health strategies including clinical approaches.

Methods: An important step in the life cycle of any initiative involves ensuring sustainability. Sustainability efforts were examined at the level of partners, promotores, and community participants within SPSC programs. We described the sustainability framework and used an innovative sustainability monitoring tool to help assess and prioritize the sustainability process in six SPSC programs. These assessments include strengths and gaps in the following seven domains: leadership competence; strong and effective collaboration; understanding the community; program flexibility; staff quality and improvement; stable and sufficient funding; and demonstrated program success.

Results: The results showed that the SPSC programs have several indicators of the sustainability framework in place and had an impact in the Latino communities served, in several domains of sustainability.

Conclusions: Using a framework and innovative sustainability assessment tool, six SPSC programs revealed important progress in sustaining a community-based health promotion and disease prevention program led by promotores in the Latino community.

Learning Areas:
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this session, participants should be able to: • Describe the purpose of the SPSC Promotora de salud model. • List the sustainability framework inputs and outputs as indicators to describe the experience of SPSC promotores de salud projects. • Discuss the sustainability monitoring tool to assess status, priorities, and gaps of sustainability processes of the SPSC Promotora de salud projects. • Share their experience in assessing sustainability of promotora/CHW programs.

Keywords: Sustainability, Community Health Promoters

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified because I have been working with promotores for over 20 years in different projects. I coordinate the CHW Initiative which works with the CHW model and with CHWs around the country in heart health education.
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.

See more of: Sustaining CHW Programs: Successes and Challenges
See more of: Community Health Workers