Reach su comunidad: A community health worker model emphasizing policy, systems and environmental strategies to address hispanic health disparities among 6 US-states

Reach Su Comunidad is a Consortium of organizations that have demonstrated commitment to improve the health of Hispanic populations in 15 selected communities from Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington by supporting the leadership of local community organizations utilizing community health workers as community change facilitators to complement direct service provisions. This Consortium is integrating a unique community empowerment and ecological public health model to improve the health of Hispanic populations among the 15 communities by utilizing policy (P), systems (S) and environmental (E) strategies guided by community health workers. A transformative process approach is being implemented to guide the goals and specific objectives set by the 15 sub-recipients within the targeted States specifically supporting proper nutrition, physical activity and healthy changes in weight. These processes include: 1) establishing a functional multi-sector community coalition to constitute the "community leadership team"; 2) utilizing a community assessment/policy scan to drive the community health worker model for implementing PSE activities in vulnerable Hispanic communities; 3)advancing health equity by integrating the community health worker model into community-level PSE strategy implementation ; 4) receiving ongoing technical assistance by the Consortium that includes a comprehensive toolkit with an in-depth ecological evaluation to measure components of the PSE activities lead by community health workers. This presentation will provide highlights of all of the components of the Reach Su Comunidad Initiative.