Promotores de Salud Programs: Community Health Workers in the fields
Promotores de Salud: Community Health Workers in the fields
Newsletters - Fall 2009 Newsletter
Programs that use lay health educators (or promotores de salud in Spanish) are an effective way of extending access to basic health care to people in underserved communities. Farmworker Justice saw great potential in these peer-to-peer outreach programs and helped adapt them to provide HIV/AIDS and environmental health education to migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families.The promotores programs are based on training volunteer health educators who then go out and work within their communities to spread positive messages about preventative health care. Promotores serve as a cultural bridge between their peers and the institutionalized health care system, promoting health education to those who might not otherwise have access to this information.
For each of our promotores de salud projects, Farmworker Justice has developed a training curriculum and produced educational materials. Using these curricula, promotores learn leadership and communication skills as well as substantive information about HIV/AIDS prevention and testing, or in the environmental health context, practical ways to reduce exposure to hazards such as pesticides and lead. The strength of this model is that promotores are empowered to address pressing health concerns in their communities, and they learn the skills needed to mobilize others to join them in that effort. After completion of a comprehensive training program, the promotores are ready to work in their communities, educate their peers about health hazards and practical ways to minimize their exposures to them.
Beginning in 2001, Farmworker Justice began working as a community partner in the CDC's HIV/AIDS prevention projects using the promotores model. We worked intensively with 11 community organizations to help them create, implement, and evaluate their promotores de salud programs. Through this grant we trained promotores in Washington, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, and California using a training curriculum that we adapted specifically for the Latino migrant community, called Lideres Campesinos por La Salud.
We have also used promotores programs with indigenous farmworkers in Oregon to increase awareness and knowledge of environmental health. In partnership with Oregon Law Center, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noreste (PCUN), Portland State University, and Salud Medical Center, Farmworker Justice developed training materials on environmental health, pesticide safety, and grassroots advocacy specifically tailored to the needs of indigenous workers. We are continuing this promotores program under a new grant assess whether an enhanced pesticide safety education curriculum reduces workers' exposure to pesticides, and ultimately, their risk for long-term health effects.
With many of FJ's promotores programs, we often organize a community event, such as a health fair or conference. Health fairs include presentations on such topics as child car seat safety, HIV basics, traditional medicine, and workshops on legal rights. Local health departments often attend to offer vaccines for children and HIV testing. In 2003 and 2004, FJ organized a day-long community forum on environmental health in San Diego, CA and El Paso, TX, respectively. Each forum brought together community health organizations, promotores de salud and others from health clinics, farmworker groups, environmental organizations and government agencies in the border communities,
Farmworker Justice won the Business and Labor Award for HIV/AIDS Prevention from the CDC in 2000 and an award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 in recognition of the innovative promotores programs that were instituted at Farmworker Justice.
FJ is currently beginning a new 4.5 year program focused community mobilization through promotores de salud programs nationwide. Our activities throughout the grant will include developing a best practices guide for promotores de salud projects, designing and implementing a Training of Trainers workshop for organizations interested in mobilizing their communities using promotores de salud, and helping agencies create and improve their projects through one-on-one technical assistance. For more information on this project, see the article titled FJ is awarded grant to mobilize rural Latino communities against HIV.
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