Through a community-based participatory research partnership, we will plan for, develop, implement, evaluate and disseminate an intervention to address health disparities in the Caribbean Latino population in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The Specific Aims of this project are: (1) To establish a community advisory board to guide the development, implementation and dissemination of an intervention that is culturally appropriate and community specific. (2) Assure that community needs, advisory board recommendations, and steering committee decisions and actions are aligned. (3) We will a) determine the specific disease/chronic condition to serve as the basis for intervention and b) identify appropriate aspects of the built environment to be targeted by the intervention;and (4) We will a) design and pilot test a community-level disease-specific intervention to address deficiencies and maximize any existing advantages in the built environment, and/or to mitigate the direct and/or indirect effects of the built environment on health, b) conduct both a process and outcome evaluation of the intervention, and c) disseminate findings and develop a full intervention trial. Latinos are and will remain the country's largest minority group well into the future. In the northeast Caribbean Latinos (Puerto Ricans and Dominicans) represent the largest segment of the Latino population. Because of the youthfulness of the demographic, Latino children/youth are a priority age group. By addressing the causes of health disparities among Latino children and youth early and life, it is possible to provide children with living environments and social conditions conducive to good health, which can create pathways to health as opposed to disparities. This project is significant because, (1) it is a within-group intervention research project targeting a not well-understood sub-population of the Latino demographic;(2) the project is unique because it brings together a diverse group of community stakeholders;(3) key personnel are primarily people of color, with a majority of bilingual Latina women of varying backgrounds;and (4) the project introduces two new investigators of color.
Characteristics of the built environment can create/sustain health disparities, hence tackling them requires interventions to address macro-level factors that influence health. By addressing the causes of health disparities among Latino children/youth early and life, it is possible to create living environments and social conditions conducive to good health, which can create pathways to health as opposed to disparities.
| Ndulue, Uchenna; Perea, Flavia C; Kayou, Bashier et al. (2012) Team-building activities as strategies for improving community-university partnerships: lessons learned from Nuestro Futuro Saludable. Prog Community Health Partnersh 6:213-8 |
| Sprague Martinez, Linda S; Gute, David M; Ndulue, Uchenna John et al. (2012) All public health is local. Revisiting the importance of local sanitation through the eyes of youth. Am J Public Health 102:1058-60 |
| Martinez, Linda S; Ndulue, Uchenna; Perea, Flavia C (2011) Nuestro Futuro saludable: connecting public health research and community development in partnership to build a healthy environment. Community Dev (Columb) 42:255-267 |
