TY - JOUR
T1 - Community Health Workers as Puentes/Bridges to Increase COVID-19 Health Equity in Latinx Communities of the Southwest U.S.
AU - Hernandez-Salinas, Christopher
AU - Marsiglia, Flavio F.
AU - Oh, Hyunsung
AU - Campos, Ana Paola
AU - De La Rosa, Kate
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - This study documents the pivotal role that Community Health Workers (CHW) played while supporting underserved Latinx communities affected by COVID-19-related health inequities. With the support of CHWs’ agencies historically serving three Latinx-dense counties in Arizona, we recruited CHWs who participated in a state-wide COVID-19 testing project. Using phenomenology and narrative qualitative research methods, five focus groups were facilitated in Spanish between August and November 2021. Bilingual research team members conducted the analysis of the Spanish verbatim transcripts and CHWs reviewed the results for validity. Three interconnected themes reflected the CHWs experiences: (1) CHWs as puentes/bridges with deep community embeddedness through shared experiences and social/cultural context, (2) CHWs as communication brokers and transformational agents, playing a pivotal role in responding to the health and socioeconomic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, (3) CHWs satisfaction and frustration due to their dual role as committed community members but unrecognized and undervalued frontline public health workers. These findings emphasize the CHWs’ commitment towards supporting their communities, even amidst the stressors of the pandemic. It is important to continue to integrate the role of CHWs into the larger healthcare system as opposed to relegating them to short term engagements as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article provides a set of practice, policy, and future research recommendations, emphasizing the need to allocate greater budgetary and training resources in support of CHWs.
AB - This study documents the pivotal role that Community Health Workers (CHW) played while supporting underserved Latinx communities affected by COVID-19-related health inequities. With the support of CHWs’ agencies historically serving three Latinx-dense counties in Arizona, we recruited CHWs who participated in a state-wide COVID-19 testing project. Using phenomenology and narrative qualitative research methods, five focus groups were facilitated in Spanish between August and November 2021. Bilingual research team members conducted the analysis of the Spanish verbatim transcripts and CHWs reviewed the results for validity. Three interconnected themes reflected the CHWs experiences: (1) CHWs as puentes/bridges with deep community embeddedness through shared experiences and social/cultural context, (2) CHWs as communication brokers and transformational agents, playing a pivotal role in responding to the health and socioeconomic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, (3) CHWs satisfaction and frustration due to their dual role as committed community members but unrecognized and undervalued frontline public health workers. These findings emphasize the CHWs’ commitment towards supporting their communities, even amidst the stressors of the pandemic. It is important to continue to integrate the role of CHWs into the larger healthcare system as opposed to relegating them to short term engagements as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article provides a set of practice, policy, and future research recommendations, emphasizing the need to allocate greater budgetary and training resources in support of CHWs.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Community health workers
KW - Health equity
KW - Latinx Communities
KW - Promotoras
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144336269&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85144336269&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10900-022-01182-5
DO - 10.1007/s10900-022-01182-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 36536085
AN - SCOPUS:85144336269
SN - 0094-5145
VL - 48
SP - 398
EP - 413
JO - Journal of Community Health
JF - Journal of Community Health
IS - 3
ER -