With a commitment to the development of strong academic-community partnerships, the University of Texas at El Paso in collaboration with the UT School of Public Health El Paso regional campus, along with several academic-community partners propose to address cardiovascular health disparities experienced by residents in a Texas community along the US-Mexico border region. The project proposes to develop a plan that employs a community health worker (CHW)/Promotoras approach to effectively promote cardiovascular health among Hispanics in order to brake the cycle of behaviors that place individuals and their families at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Specific aims are to develop a Community Advisory Board (CAB) to lead the participatory research process; perform a community needs/assets assessment to guide the research process; and conduct a pilot intervention to identify an optimal CHW outreach approach. Participating border community is geographically bound within the Lower Valley and Mission Valley of El Paso, Texas. Strategies for involving the community at initiation of the project include community forums, focus groups, and monthly round table working discussions with many community partners from the targeted population. The participation of the community in the research process will be formally established via the CAB. Salud para su Corazon (Health for your Heart) intervention will serve as catalyst for discussion of a community action plan.This dialogue generated from the collaborative relationships will drive the design of a two-year pilot intervention based upon community needs. The research team seeks to employ a field experimental design with random assignment to intervention and control groups of 330 Hispanic adults with two or more CVD risk factors for the two year pilot study. The outcome variables of interest include behavioral and clinical measures. The ultimate goal of the project is to consolidate partnerships as part of a unified approach to prevention and control of CVD prevalent in the US-Mexico border area. These partnerships will help solidify and infrastructure within El Paso County that will enable communities to contribute to national efforts aimed at reducing and eliminating health inequalities. This academic-community partnership will engage in public discourse about health challenges experienced by border communities with the purpose of developing a culturally competent plan to adequately address them. performance site(S) (organization, city, state) UTEP-College of Health Sciences, El Paso, Texas ? ?
