Development of a curriculum and training program for community health promoters in vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT

The Community Training Institute for Health Disparities (CTIHD) designed a curriculum for a community health promotion program to provide training and enable community members to facilitate community action by empowering individuals with health education, knowledge, and skills to respond to community health needs, specifically to vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico which had already being affected by natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and migration. A problem-based curriculum design that integrates a competency-based learning model, which included the creation and development of two courses: Introduction to Community Health Promotion and Community Wellness & Health Promotion. Each course consisted of 10 sessions lasting three hours per session. The assessment per session included a pre- and post-test and overall evaluation of the session, and a discussion or practice exercise at the end of the session. Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentage) were performed to develop the profile of community participants. Central tendency measures (mean and median), and dispersion measures (variance and standard deviation) were used to describe the scores. Twelve (12) community leaders from different southern municipalities of Puerto Rico were recruited. Of these, nine completed the first course and eight completed the second (75% retention rate for Course 1 and 67% retention rate for Course 2). An 18% (difference of 1.2) increase in knowledge was obtained for Course a and a 16% (difference of 0.85) for Course 2. This curriculum enhances communities’ resources, providing their leaders with the necessary competencies to impact health behavior, promote prevention, and become a health promoter within their communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Health promotion
• curriculum
• vulnerable communities
• community health worker
• CBPR

Acknowledgements

The work presented was supported by the Research Centers for Minority Institutions (RCMI-U54MD007579). Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21MD013674 and the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number 5U54GM133807. The content is solely the author’s responsibility and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

Accountability:

Had full access to all the data in the study and assumed responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Jimenez, J., Morales L.

Concept and study design:

Morales L., Jimenez, J. Velez, D.

Acquisition of data:

Velez, D.

Analysis and interpretation of data:

Morales, L., Velez, D.

Drafting of the manuscript:

Rosario F, Marzan M, Velez, D.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content:

Jimenez, J., Marzan, M.

Statistical analysis:

Morales, L.

Acquisition of funding:

Jimenez, J.

Study supervision:

Jimenez J, Marzan M, Rosario F.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Research Centers for Minority Institutions [U54MD007579]; Individual Development Award [5U54GM133807]; National Institute of Health [R21MD013674].