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Rural Health Information Hub

Idaho Partnership for Hispanic Health

  • Project Title: Companeros en Salud (Partners in Health)
  • Grant Period: National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities Grantee
  • Program Representative Interviewed: Linda Powell, Program Director
  • Intervention Setting: Community
  • Program Overview: Partners in Health is a promotora, or community health worker, educational wellness program, targeting Hispanic populations in Weiser, Idaho. The program is family-centered and designed to reduce risks for metabolic syndrome by improving nutrition and physical activity. The primary objectives of the program are to:
    • Provide family members with basic information about health risks, including obesity, high blood glucose, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol
    • Teach healthy behaviors that might reduce all family members’ health risks
    • Suggest strategies for families to support healthy behaviors and special needs of family members with diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease
    • Have fun learning and experiencing healthy activities
    Partners include several community-based organizations, a hospital, and a medical center. A community advisory board consisting of community members and community organizations representatives was also instrumental in implementing the Companeros en Salud intervention.

    The program curriculum was informed by an existing diabetes intervention which shared its curriculum and granted permission to use the content. Program staff adapted the curriculum to address the broader issue of metabolic syndrome which is related to obesity in terms of waist circumference, triglyceride levels, and other common risk factors and indicators.

    Implementation of the curriculum does not require extensive resources, other than paying for staff time. However, conducting the research is expensive. The collaborative is working to identify strategies for scaling down the effort so that it can be more easily replicated in other communities. The collaborative used the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity (RAPA) and the Rapid Eating Assessment for Patients (REAP) to collect participant-level data about physical activity and healthy eating.

Resources required for implementing program