Community of practice produces training materials and expands access to resources

Santa Clara County, California, has a population of more than 1.8 million. Although 25% of the population is Latinx, they accounted for more than half of new COVID-19 cases in 2021. Researchers from the California CEAL Regional Team designed a community of practice to support community health workers and promotoras (CHW/Ps) working to address this challenge in Latinx communities.

In an article published in Frontiers in Public Health, the team’s researchers describe how the community of practice helped CHW/Ps build strong networks and share resources unavailable in their organizations. Almost all CHW/Ps stayed in the community of practice until the end of the program. Also, materials developed by the group reached more than 40,000 community members and over 3 million people online.

"[T]he community of practice model could be used for other health issues (e.g., cancer, nutrition, chronic conditions) in the future, including addressing housing, food insecurity, and climate inequities." Frontiers in Public Health, November 2023

Members of the community of practice took part in focus groups to select themes and meetings to identify objectives, goals, and processes the group would use to create capacity-building training and materials. CHW/Ps were involved throughout the project, including developing and starting program evaluation.

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