 The Arizona PRC, the Canyon Ranch Center for Prevention and Health Promotion (Center) formerly known as the Southwest Center for Community Health Promotion, is the only PRC that works primarily along the U.S.-Mexico border and that places a focus on the underserved, multi-ethnic communities living there. The social context of the border region makes it a unique area to address significant health disparities in a community-based participatory fashion.
The Center has an active regional Community Action Board (CAB), and three Local CABs in Yuma, Santa Cruz and Cochise Counties. Center staff, in partnership with the CABs, sets the Center's research agenda, designs and implements interventions, analyzes data, interprets results, and disseminates successful interventions. The Center, in collaboration with our CABs, other community partners, and state and local health departments will conduct and evaluate community-based, participatory prevention-intervention research on diabetes and concurrent conditions addressing health disparities and priorities. Towards that end, we will utilize behavioral-oriented educational curricula and activities we developed in collaboration with patients, their families and other community members. This Core Project includes related policy activities conducted by Local CAB members with our technical assistance.
Our research is conducted within the framework of the PRC national and local logic models and within a conceptual framework of behavioral and environmental change (including the “change agents change” approach and the fostering of community capacity-social capital). With engagement of the community and community health workers (CHWs), our intervention research conducts and evaluates the benefits of classes, home visits, and walking clubs within the community. The program focuses on making changes in physical activity and diet in patients, their families, and in community groups, and in making environmental and policy changes targeting these behaviors.
|
