Prevention Research Center Latino Health Network

Latino PRC Projects

What's going on at the SDPRC?

The SDPRC provides an infrastructure for building new partnerships and and strengthening existing ones by working with several local community agencies. The goal is to develop effective methods for promoting physical activity and general well-being among Latino community members living in San Ysidro, CA. The SDPRC Collaboration and Partnerships Division and the Research Division have developed a strong Community Advisory Board (CAB) with individual representing seven key agencies in San Ysidro. The Research Core and the CAB are working together to create an intervention that meets the needs of the community. Key objectives and strategies are to develop a train-the-trainer curriculum and tool kit to build agencies' capacities to promote physical activity and general well-being among Latino families.

What’s going on at other Latino PRC’s?

• University of Colorado's Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center (RMPRC)

  The RMPRC's mission is to advance healthy lifestyles and prevent chronic disease among residents and communities in the Rocky Mountain region by conducting, disseminating, and serving as a resource for community-based prevention research and policy. The RMPRC is committed to the principle of participatory research, a collaborative research approach involving our community partners in the research process. Our partner community is located in the San Luis Valley (SLV) of southern Colorado. The SLV is a low-income, bi-ethnic, rural area of southern Colorado. Almost half of its residents are Hispanic. The RMPRC has several research projects in the SLV related to nutrition, physical activity, and health aging. Interventions are based in schools, homes, and older adult settings.

• UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion

  The UCLA/RAND Center's mission is to conduct studies, develop programs, and provide training related to promoting adolescent health. It aims to build community capacities through partnerships with community organizations and its established Community Advisory Board. It is currently conducting projects that cover various aspects of health: physical activity, nutrition, sexual activity, violence, substance use, injuries, and mental health. It is examining the influence of environments (e.g., parks). Other topics include parent-adolescent communication, living with HIV-infected parents, worksite health promotion, and the impact of paid family leave. The use of new methods (e.g., Photovoice) in adolescent health promotion is also being explored.

• University of Arizona, Southwest Center for Community Health Promotion

  The Southwest Center for Community Health Promotion partners with communities in participatory research that promotes the health of multiethnic communities along the Arizona-Sonora, Mexico border. The Center conducts interventions to prevent and control diabetes and associated obesity and depression through community action to change behavior, policy and environment. Behavioral interventions include diabetes patient education, La Diabetes y la Union Familiar/Diabetes and the Family, and Pasos Adelante/Steps Forward. The Center is committed to a community health worker/promotor model and all of the Center's activities actively involve promotoras. To address policy, the Center partners with community members of Special Action Groups to identify and address areas that will improve the health of communities such finding funds and land for developing new parks, increasing access to healthy food, and working with schools to increase physical activity and improve the quality of foods served and sold. The Center also has evaluation sub-contracts to evaluate the Steps to a Healthier Arizona program and a REACH 2010 project.

• University of Illinois, Illinois Prevention Research Center

  The Illinois Prevention Research Center (IPRC) is a program of the Health Research and Policy (HRPC) Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) whose mission is to improve the health practices and outcomes among minority populations by working with community-based organizations. The overall goal of the core research project is to conduct an implementation study of a community-tailored version of the Diabetes Prevention Program's (DPP) successful clinic-based lifestyle intervention program delivered in community settings by community residents. Residents of the Greater Lawn community, on the southwest side of Chicago, at increased risk of type 2 diabetes based on their Body Mass Index are the target population for the study. Other activities include organizing an annual health fair with over 60 health care providers and exhibitors that attracts over 800 residents each year.