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This review examines the current reporting trends of program design, implementation, and evaluation of training programs for Latinx community health workers. Five scholarly databases were searched using a scoping review methodology to identify articles describing training programs for Latinx community health workers. The timeframe was 2009 to 2021. We identified 273 articles, with 59 meeting inclusion criteria. Researchers thematically coded the articles to identify reporting strategies related to program design, implementation, and evaluation. Findings suggest a lack of consensus in reporting elements critical to program resources, instructor qualifications, frequency and length of training implementation, theoretical background, and pedagogical tools associated with the training program. We offer detailed reporting recommendations of community health worker training programs to support the consistent dissemination of promising practices and facilitate the initiation of new programs for Latinx community health workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Promotoras de salud (Spanish for female community health workers) are integral to efforts to enhance the health and well-being of Latinx individuals, families, and communities. The purpose of this study was to describe the challenges that promotoras face and the proposed solutions from the perspective of the promotoras themselves. Five promotoras who worked for a year as volunteers in a community-based participatory research study, Lazos Hispanos, participated in two group interviews. Eight challenges emerged—balancing their new work with their family commitments, handling their perceived imbalance of power with men, managing the emotional impact of hearing participants' problems, facing and handling the barriers imposed by having limited English language skills, feeling discouraged by the perception of ethnocentric beliefs and discrimination from some providers, feeling disheartened by the cultural beliefs of some Latinx participants, handling the lack of transportation for themselves and for the participants, and managing the burden of data collection for the research aspect of the program. The explanation of these challenges and the practical solutions they proposed are embedded in their intersecting identities. The solutions are a valuable addition to the practice of health promotion and community-based participatory research, particularly within Latinx communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Rural & Community Development is the property of Brandon University, Rural Development Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract Background Populations of the Arabian Peninsula have a complex genetic structure that reflects waves of migrations including the earliest human migrations from Africa and eastern Asia, migrations along ancient civilization trading routes and colonization history of recent centuries. Results Here, we present a study of genome-wide admixture in this region, using 156 genotyped individuals from Qatar, a country located at the crossroads of these migration patterns. Since haplotypes of these individuals could have originated from many different populations across the world, we have developed a machine learning method "SupportMix" to infer loci-specific genomic ancestry when simultaneously analyzing many possible ancestral populations. Simulations show that SupportMix is not only more accurate than other popular admixture discovery tools but is the first admixture inference method that can efficiently scale for simultaneous analysis of 50-100 putative ancestral populations while being independent of prior demographic information. Conclusions By simultaneously using the 55 world populations from the Human Genome Diversity Panel, SupportMix was able to extract the fine-scale ancestry of the Qatar population, providing many new observations concerning the ancestry of the region. For example, as well as recapitulating the three major sub-populations in Qatar, composed of mainly Arabic, Persian, and African ancestry, SupportMix additionally identifies the specific ancestry of the Persian group to populations sampled in Greater Persia rather than from China and the ancestry of the African group to sub-Saharan origin and not Southern African Bantu origin as previously thought.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is on the rise not only within public health and allied health professions, but also within social work. This may not be that surprising when we recognize the rich alignment between the underlying tenets of CBPR (e.g., strengths-based focus, empowerment, social justice) and social work values (e.g., dignity and worth of the individual, human relationships, social justice). Despite noted benefits related to capacity development, community self-governance, and social justice, CBPR is challenged by a seemingly antagonistic relationship with academic expectations regarding "scholarly productivity." To explore further this tension, the current work brings into conversation the reflections of three individuals: a doctoral student, a junior faculty member, and a newly tenured faculty member. We highlight our own challenges in navigating CBPR within academia and offer recommendations to encourage the development of a professional infrastructure supportive of this approach and, thereby, its related benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of Lazos Hispanos is to enhance the health and well‐being of the Latinx community through promotoras, who connect community members with service providers for multiple health and social needs. A community‐based participatory research conceptual model framed the multimethod evaluation of promotoras, service providers, and community participants at baseline and at the 1‐year follow up. The promotoras increased their self‐efficacy and knowledge, felt a strong sense of commitment to the community, viewed themselves as a bridge between participants and providers, and felt empowered by their new role. Service providers valued the promotoras as their ambassadors in the community and Lazos Hispanos as central to connecting service providers, promotoras, and community members; they noted that this collaboration increased their accountability with the Latinx community. This multistakeholder evaluation highlights the depth of positive changes achieved during the first year and the challenges of a community‐embedded project and the benefits and possibilities of calling upon theoretically informed evaluation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world's climate changes, life faces an evolving thermal environment. Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) is critical to ensure sufficient cellular energy production, and it is strongly influenced by temperature. The thermally induced changes to the regulation of specific steps within the OXPHOS process are poorly understood. In our study, we used the eurythermal species of planarian Dugesia tigrina to study the thermal sensitivity of the OXPHOS process at 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30°C. We conducted cold acclimation experiments where we measured the adjustment of specific steps in OXPHOS at two assay temperatures (10 and 20°C) following 4 weeks of acclimation under normal (22°C) or low (5°C) temperature conditions. At the low temperature, the contribution of the NADH pathway to the maximal OXPHOS capacity, in a combined pathway (NADH and succinate), was reduced. There was partial compensation by an increased contribution of the succinate pathway. As the temperature decreased, OXPHOS became more limited by the capacity of the phosphorylation system. Acclimation to the low temperature resulted in positive adjustments of the NADH pathway capacity due, at least in part, to an increase in complex I activity. The acclimation also resulted in a better match between OXPHOS and phosphorylation system capacities. Both of these adjustments following acclimation were specific to the low assay temperature. We conclude that there is substantial plasticity in the mitochondrial OXPHOS process following thermal acclimation in D. tigrina, and this probably contributes to the wide thermal range of the species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine limitations to extant data available to researchers and community developers on affordable rental housing, particularly as they pertain to smaller geographies. Drawing upon extensive, community-engaged research conducted in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, we find that 43% of rentals are in the secondary market (i.e., structures such as duplexes and accessory apartments), although data are not collected on this housing type on the part of government. We also find that most rents do not include all utilities, meaning that extant data present a partial view of housing costs. In addition, we examine how the inclusion of additional variables (e.g., utility costs, accessibility and targeting of the stock) and housing types—namely rooming houses—may contribute to a more robust understanding of rental housing in our communities. Data show that rooming houses are the most affordable source of market-based housing, and that landlords commonly target their units to particular renters, such as seniors and families. Less than 3% of rentals are accessible, and these units have higher shelter costs, despite an aging population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research finds a positive association between social capital and community well-being, ranging from decreased crime to greater local economic development and resiliency. Using a nationally representative sample from Canada, this study explores the specific impact of housing tenure (homeownership vs. renting) on three forms of neighbourhood social capital: bonding (trust, exchanges among neighbours and sense of belonging to one’s community), bridging (participation in local organizations) and linking social capital (voting in municipal elections). Findings suggest a positive association between homeownership and forms of bonding social capital and, to a lesser degree, linking social capital, but no clear effect on bridging social capital. Length of residence, having children at home, education, being a visible minority and region also emerged as significant in many models. We argue that exploring further housing stabilization and community-building efforts among rental properties - both public and private - might yield important social capital returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the promise of infusing the community health worker—Promotores—model within social work. In support of community health and social justice, we encourage a return to the historical legacy of this model and our profession by emphasizing not only access and quality of health and social services, but also indigenous leadership development and community advocacy to engender multisystemic change. In so doing, we highlight a richly successfulPromotoresorganization—PASOs—serving Latino communities throughout South Carolina and conclude by discussing the possibilities of this model as we strive to (re)imagine culturally responsive approaches to social work research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article details the outcomes of an innovative, qualitative inquiry exploring specific behaviors that facilitate the creation of equitable, community-based partnerships. Based on a convenience sample of 18 community members, service providers, and graduate student researchers previously engaged in 2 community assessment efforts, I used the critical incident technique to identify 121 unique, facilitating behaviors. These behaviors were then inductively categorized into a behavioral taxonomy containing 9 domains of interest, ranging from gaining entree to increasing community member comfort and willingness to participate to ensuring community does not feel 'used or researched.' These findings offer a unique and critically important contribution to the fields of community-based research, practice, and service learning by identifying specific behaviors that foster equitable, participatory partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To identify a parsimonious subset of reliable, valid, and consumer-salient items from 33 questions asking for patient reports about hospital care quality. Data Source. CAHPS® Hospital Survey pilot data were collected during the summer of 2003 using mail and telephone from 19,720 patients who had been treated in 132 hospitals in three states and discharged from November 2002 to January 2003. Methods. Standard psychometric methods were used to assess the reliability (internal consistency reliability and hospital-level reliability) and construct validity (exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, strength of relationship to overall rating of hospital) of the 33 report items. The best subset of items from among the 33 was selected based on their statistical properties in conjunction with the importance assigned to each item by participants in 14 focus groups. Principal Findings. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that a subset of 16 questions proposed to measure seven aspects of hospital care (communication with nurses, communication with doctors, responsiveness to patient needs, physical environment, pain control, communication about medication, and discharge information) demonstrated excellent fit to the data. Scales in each of these areas had acceptable levels of reliability to discriminate among hospitals and internal consistency reliability estimates comparable with previously developed CAHPS instruments. Conclusion. Although half the length of the original, the shorter CAHPS hospital survey demonstrates promising measurement properties, identifies variations in care among hospitals, and deals with aspects of the hospital stay that are important to patients' evaluations of care quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]