Community Building with Conversations about COVID-19

It is well known that group gatherings and collective events are an important socio-cultural characteristic of Latinx and Native communities, and the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the setting in which these gatherings take place. To address this problem, a group of health sciences librarians produced an online series of platicas/ cafecitos , or conversations, held in collaboration with several promotores, or community health workers. Librarians also worked with 2nd year medical students, introducing them to reliable health information resources in order for them to use and share with classmates. The focus of this approach is to train both medical students and community health workers how to access COVID-19 health information resources and products of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and other government agencies. Health topics include infection control and prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and mental health with an emphasis on cultural relevance.

The project team, made up of librarians and medical students, designed a program using multimodal forms of communication to recruit participants in the Latinx (Promotores) and Native American Community Health Workers. The team will conduct and promote sessions using social media, Zoom, local radio broadcasts and newspaper ads. The curriculum includes the promotion of health information resources that can be used to learn more about health topics and develop culturally relevant information which can be disseminated related to Covid-19. After the session, participants will share the information learned with community members to increase their knowledge of NLM and reliable health information resources. Evaluation of the program will ask participants how they plan to share the information learned with community members and whether they think it will be a useful set of tools for the community.

The evaluation methods used throughout the program will inform future developments or iterations. The assessment librarian used data collected from surveys, pre-tests, and observational techniques to assess both medical students and Community Health Workers. Medical students will acquire the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to teach health literacy training to Community Health Workers. Community Health Workers will concurrently increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to implement health literacy activities in their communities. This will lead to Community Health Workers’ increased planning and implementation of health literacy outreach activities and community engagement. In the long term, Native American and LatinX communities will have increased access to the National Library of Medicine and reliable health information resources.