ABSTRACT
Public health practice increasingly is concerned with the capacity and performance of communities to identify, implement, strengthen, and sustain collective efforts to improve health. The authors developed ways to assist local Turning Point partnerships to improve their community public health system as a secondary outcome of their work on the expressed needs of the community. Using focus groups, meeting minutes, attendance records, and meeting observation, the authors fed information back to the partnerships on systems change. A public health systems improvement plan supportive of local partnerships' work on specific health issues was funded and the collaborative research agenda was further refined.
Subject(s)
Community Health Planning/organization & administration , Community-Institutional Relations , Health Promotion/organization & administration , Public Health Practice , Arizona , Chronic Disease , Cooperative Behavior , Female , Focus Groups , Health Services Needs and Demand , Hispanic or Latino , Humans , Mexico , ResearchABSTRACT
In this article, the author examines the creation and development of Arizona's statewide tobacco control program. In particular, he examines the three basic goals of prevention, cessation, and policy and emphasizes the need to focus equally on all to build an effective program. The need for sound theory and research to guide statewide comprehensive programs is highlighted.
Subject(s)
Public Policy , Smoking Cessation , Smoking Prevention , Taxes/legislation & jurisprudence , Arizona , Education , Humans , Interinstitutional Relations , Program Development , Smoking/economics , Smoking/legislation & jurisprudence , State GovernmentABSTRACT
This article contains the findings from an evaluation of a prenatal education program to Hispanic migrant farmworker families using peer health workers. The focus of the evaluation was on establishing the validity of the intervention model in the target population. Data are presented on the program setting, characteristics of the clients served, and effects of the educational program on the clients and peer health workers. The evaluation identified factors that established confidence in the program model: (1) there were existing barriers to health care and health information; (2) the program served a culturally specific and disadvantaged population; (3) the prenatal curriculum was culturally sensitive; (4) the peer workers were accepted by the target community; and (5) the model did not threaten the medical community. The directions for future research are presented.
Subject(s)
Allied Health Personnel/statistics & numerical data , Health Education , Maternal Health Services , Prenatal Care , Transients and Migrants , Adolescent , Adult , Agriculture , Female , Humans , Male , Program Evaluation , WorkforceABSTRACT
This article reports on the design and implementation of a prenatal outreach and education intervention for low income, Hispanic women living in three migrant and seasonal farmworker communities in Arizona. The program included three major elements: a Spanish language prenatal curriculum; a group of mature Hispanic women recruited from the target communities and trained as "Comienzo Sano" (healthy beginning) Promotoras (health promoters), and the organization of a support network of local health professionals. The rationale for the demonstration is reviewed, and the structure of the intervention is described. Factors which facilitated and constrained implementation of the program are identified, and guidelines are provided for other health care providers and health educators interested in developing similar programs.
Subject(s)
Allied Health Personnel , Health Promotion , Prenatal Care , Program Development , Arizona , Female , Hispanic or Latino , Humans , Program Development/economics , Social Support , Transients and MigrantsSubject(s)
Agricultural Workers' Diseases/prevention & control , Rural Health , Transients and Migrants , Agricultural Workers' Diseases/epidemiology , Agricultural Workers' Diseases/ethnology , Forms and Records Control , Health Status Indicators , Humans , Occupational Medicine/methods , Primary Prevention/methods , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
This study was designed to identify the determinants of postoperative work status among 47 heart transplantation patients at the University of Arizona Medical Center and to focus attention on those actions or policies that increase the probability that a patient will return to work within 6 months after transplantation. Issues regarding work status, disability, and early retirement have become increasingly salient. Case study methods were employed to assign each of the patients to one of four categories, which together form a typology of postoperative work status. Analysis of the patients identified four major variables of work status: age, length of disability before transplantation, control over working conditions including job redefinition/discrimination, and type of health insurance including cost of medication. Although these variables are interdependent, each also has an independent effect on postoperative outcome. The study concludes that although age and length of disability before transplantation cannot be directly affected, both control over working conditions and types of insurance are amenable to intervention.
