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Midterm # 1

By

Kanale Rodrigues
HSCI 607
CSUSB
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Abstract

The first part of the paper will discuss development of the pipeline programs to

encourage students that live in underserved communities to pursue careers has a healthcare

professionals. The pipeline programs will also be open to more opportunities for healthcare

professionals that mentor the students in the pipeline programs be improving cultural

competency skills and increase the odds for eliminating health disparities by learning from their

student’s cultural background and upbringing. The second essay will discuss the benefits of a

community health worker and how understanding the target population’s culture would lead to

the target population being more open and education about health concerns among their

community and ethnic group. Adding, the use of community health workers would be able to

communicate more effectively to a target population of the same culture based on the sharing of

the same cultural background.

Keywords: Pipeline program, cultural competency, community health worker

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Question 1- Pipeline Programs

Health professionals throughout the years have developed pipeline programs as an

opportunity for potential students that live in underserved communities that there is a bright

future to become a successful healthcare professional (Kuo et al., 2015). The following essay

will the discuss the importance of pipeline programs and how focusing on the development of

future healthcare professionals in underserved communities would improve physicians and

healthcare professionals such as public health professionals an understanding of the cultural

aspect in the communities that they serve with an overall goal to eliminate or limit health

disparities.

Health disparities would be the social, economic, and environmental elements leading to

health concerns or problems for a specific community (Braveman, 2014, P.5-8). For example a

community that has limited supermarkets within walking distance versus a high number of fast

food chain restaurants could lead to members of the community becoming obese. The example

above would be explain potential health disparities in that specific community for limited access

to healthy foods or even transport to the supermarket could be a economic and environmental

concern for community members. However, Braveman (2014) also discussed the concept of

health equity defined as reducing health disparities in a specific community. Pipeline programs

could be used to improve health outcomes in communities by targeting the future healthcare

professionals of tomorrow. Also, by understanding the target population of a community

developing potential students of that underserved community would improve healthcare

professionals understanding of cultural competency that community members have specific

needs learning from the students struggles in that underserved community.

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Another concept that could better improve health disparities in communities would be the

understanding of the culture or different cultures in the target population being severed. The

concept would be the improvement of healthcare professionals with major focus on physicians in

the area of cultural competency (Purnell, 2005, P.7). Cultural competency would be the

development of skills and knowledge to improve the connection between the healthcare

professional and the attended target audience through a deeper understanding of the target

audience’s cultural background, in which could influence many health decisions. The pipeline

programs could improve connection between the target the population and healthcare

professional by students of the pipeline program having lived in an underserved community

giving better understanding and personal perspective on how to communicate effectively to

community members or patients in a way to increase transfer on information with the overall

goal of improving health equity in that community (Prunell, 2005, P.7). Pipeline programs as

explained above could give a great opportunity to future healthcare professionals in a population

that would be considered the minority (African American, Hispanic/ Latino, etc). Cultural

understanding could be increased greatly from healthcare professionals from a specific ethnic

group connecting to community members of the same ethnic background. Also pipeline

programs reaching out to the youth population to increase the development of a long love of

learning (Wallace et el ., 2014).

To conclude the development of pipeline programs would help in eliminating or limiting

health disparities with improved cultural competency of monitoring physicians, improved

connection between community members, and providing an opportunity to future healthcare

professionals being the youth or young adult that they might even know would be an option due

to their up bringing or being a first generation college student (Keselman et al., 2016).
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Question-2 Lay health workers

Community health workers such as promotores, lay health workers, and health

navigators understand the communities that they serve and could have a major influence on

improved health outcome as well as eliminate or limit health disparities. Community health

workers can have different titles but their overall job description remains the same to educate the

specific target population about different health concerns in that area to increase the overall

health of the community. In this essay the topic of community health workers role in improving

the overall health of marginalized groups in the United States will be discussed. Also, the use of

community health workers to educate on a specific communities health concerns will give a

special connection to the community members for the reasons that it is a community member

that shares the same cultural and values educating the target population (Furtado et al., 2016).

In terms of the marginalized group populations in the United States, examples would the

immigrant population such as the Hispanic/ Latino culture and people of different colors and

cultures. Understanding the culture of the target population is key to effectively educate and even

influence a behavior change. For an example a study was conducted to educate Hispanic men of

reproductive health in the best way possible by training male soccer players that played in the

community of Hispanic origin to educate the target population being Hispanic men in the study

on way to decrease the chances of developing a STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases) and

promote healthy sex practices (Wagoner et al., 2014). Above was an example of using

community members of the same gender and ethnic group to educate other members of the

community to improve health in that particular area, in which were very respective based on the

bond between community members of the same culture (Wagoner et al ., 2014).

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Another example where a community health worker would be way to improve the health

of the marginalized group of the target population would through understanding the target

population would be people of the same culture. For example a study was conducted to

understand the frequency that Muslim women received mammograms in the United States, the

results of the study showed only 52 percent of the population had a mammogram in the past two

years. Adding, the authors did discuss that cultural barriers and self-efficacy elements could be

the reason for not following up with another test (Hasnain et el., 2014). A community health

worker being a Muslim women being able to explain to other Muslim the importance of

receiving a mammogram test every two years could improve overall prevention measures of

receiving breast cancer. However, a deeper understanding of the culture would be needed to

know if a community health worker in would be appropriate factor to educate Muslim women of

the importance of mammogram testing. Another example would a study that was conducted used

teen lay health advisors of African American Decent to speak to other teens of the same ethnic

groups about the means of being in a health relationship. The results showed that the target

population was engaged and receptive receiving information from African American teens from

the same background and ethnic group (Ritchwood et al., 2015).

To conclude community health workers could play a major role improving the health of

communities through understanding the target populations needs by being a member of that

specific community themselves. The examples above show the receptiveness of community

members being educated about a topic that comes from the same ethnic background as them.

Finally, community health workers can have hand in eliminating health disparities and

improving the health equity in their own communities.

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Work Cited

Braveman, P. (2014). What are Health Disparities and Health Equity? We Need to Be Clear.

Public Health Reports, 129(1_suppl2), 5-8. doi:10.1177/00333549141291s203

Furtado, K. S., Kaphingst, K. A., Perkins, H., & Politi, M. C. (2015). Health Insurance

Information-Seeking Behaviors Among the Uninsured. Journal of Health Communication, 21(2),

148-158. doi:10.1080/10810730.2015.1039678

Hasnain, M., Menon, U., Ferrans, C. E., & Szalacha, L. (2014). Breast Cancer Screening

Practices Among First-Generation Immigrant Muslim Women. Journal of Womens Health,

23(7), 602-612. doi:10.1089/jwh.2013.4569

Kuo, A. A., Verdugo, B., Holmes, F. J., Henry, K. A., Vo, J. H., Perez, V. H., . . . Guerrero, A.

D. (2015). Creating an MCH Pipeline for Disadvantaged Undergraduate Students. Maternal and

Child Health Journal, 19(10), 2111-2118. doi:10.1007/s10995-015-1749-3

Ma, A. K., Quasem, B. S., Kelly, M. J., & Gale A. Dutcher, Ms, Mls, Ahip. (2017). Evaluation

of a health sciences internship for Latino and Native American library students. Journal of the

Medical Library Association, 104(4). doi:10.5195/jmla.2016.152

Purnell, L. (2002). The Purnell Model for Cultural Competence. Journal of Transcultural

Nursing, 13(3), 193-196. doi:10.1177/10459602013003006

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Ritchwood, T. D., Albritton, T., Akers, A. Y., Dave, G., Carthron, D., Adimora, A. A., &

Corbie-Smith, G. (2015). The Effect of Teach One Reach One (TORO) on Youth Acceptance of

Couple Violence. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(12), 3805-3815. doi:10.1007/s10826-

015-0188-5

Wagoner, K. G., Downs, M., Alonzo, J., Daniel-Ulloa, J., & Rhodes, S. D. (2014). Latino mens

qualitative perspectives on a lay health advisor intervention to promote their sexual health.

Health & Social Care in the Community, 23(3), 304-312. doi:10.1111/hsc.12148

Wallace, E. W., Perry, J. C., Ferguson, R. L., & Jackson, D. K. (2014). The Careers in Health

and Medical Professions Program (CHAMPS): An Impact Study of a University-Based STEM H

Outreach Program. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 24(4), 484-495.

doi:10.1007/s10956-014-9536-2