WITHDRAWN: Dignity and Justice for All: Improving Health Equity through Partnered Implementation Efforts with Promotoras

Background: Promotoras de salud (i.e., community health workers) have been identified as a workforce to help improve health equity for underserved communities. As trusted community members, promotoras are uniquely situated to increase access and utilization of evidence-based practices in a culturally and linguistically appropriate way. However, limited research has focused on the implementation strategies that are needed to support promotoras. Additionally, as members of vulnerable communities, promotoras face many of the same challenges as the individuals they serve, including poverty and discrimination. As such, this workforce has the potential to improve health equity, but also runs the risk of being exploited within the traditional service sectors that might contract to work with them. Using a social justice framework, this talk will focus on how implementation research with promotoras can focus on improving equity for the communities served and the providers of the evidence-based services.

Methods: A community-academic partnership was formed between university researchers and a network of promotoras to increase access to and engagement evidence-based mental health services for Latinx parents. To understand the strategies used in implementation-as-usual with promotoras, a mixed methods design was used that included quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. Fifteen Latina, Spanish-speaking participants with 1 to 20 years experience serving as promotoras (M = 4.29, SD = 4.78) completed surveys and interviews.

Findings: Promotoras reported involvement in a range projects focused on increasing health equity within the Latinx community, including diabetes management, Alzheimer’s identification, and delivering parenting interventions. Interview themes illuminated the rewards and challenges promotoras had in these roles. Promotoras identified that their lived experiences and cultural values helped them promote engagement and utilization of evidence-based practices. Further, serving as a promotora positively influenced their personal sense of well-being. However, they identified that there was not always adequate training or supervision.

Implications for D&I: Considerations when working with promotoras will be discussed, with an emphasis on how implementation strategies can be tailored to increase capacity building and job satisfaction with promotoras. Specifically, discussion will focus on how to promote social justice when working with this vulnerable workforce.