Community Health News and Updates
Living a Healthy Lifestyle: Community Health Workers Promoting Diabetes Prevention Among Families
As type II diabetes continues to rise, especially among our Latino population, it is important to educate our communities on the preventative measures and risk factors for this disease. While most of these interventions focus on individual behavior change, more recent research suggests that a family-centered approach to chronic disease prevention provides promising results. In this blog, we will discuss the importance of living a healthy lifestyle and how Community Health Workers play a key role in implementing family-centered diabetes interventions.
Blog Topics
Our Program, Navigator, Makes a Big Impact in the Rio Grande Valley
Of all the areas that MHP Salud operates in, our agency recognized that there was the greatest need for insurance enrollment assistance in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Not only are there many uninsured individuals in the area, but environmental challenges unique to the region create additional challenges for people navigating the often complex insurance process to connect to care.
Community Health Workers in Michigan, A Historic Look at the Rise of the Profession
The first Community Health Workers in Michigan were trained in the 1960s to provide services to their communities. Around this time, the federal government began providing funding for community-based programs that used CHWs to reach underserved communities. Community Health Workers in Michigan and across the country began having an impact on the national level when in 1978, CHWs formed the New Professionals Special Primary Interest Group in the American Public Health Association (APHA).
What is a Food Desert?
This lack of access could be a result of many factors. For some communities, healthy food isn’t available. There may not be a grocery store within 10 or 20 miles and food is often purchased from fast food restaurants or convenience stores where many items are highly processed and have lower nutritional value than fresh produce. In some cases, healthy food may be technically available but not accessible.
