Partnering for Health with Nebraska's Latina Immigrant Community Using Design Thinking Process

Area of Science:

• Community Health
• Health Disparities
• Health Education

Background:

• A partnership between the University of Nebraska Medical Center and El Centro de Las Americas developed a Spanish-language health conference, El Encuentro de La Mujer Sana (Healthy Woman Summit).
• The conference targeted immigrant Latinas in Nebraska during National Women's Health Week in May 2013.
• The initiative aimed to address health disparities within this specific demographic.

Purpose of the Study:

• To utilize design thinking to create a meaningful and culturally relevant learning experience for monolingual, Spanish-speaking immigrant Latinas.
• To establish a collaborative foundation among academic institutions, community-based organizations, and community members.
• To ensure health education initiatives are linguistically appropriate and meet the unique needs of the target population.

Main Methods:

• Employed the design thinking methodology to ideate conference topics and content.
• Prototyped conference agendas in collaboration with community stakeholders.
• Focused on a community-engaged co-creation process to ensure relevance and cultural appropriateness.

Main Results:

• The co-creation process fostered trust between organizations and the community.
• Enhanced community capacity for developing and implementing health education programs.
• Successfully met identified needs for culturally and linguistically appropriate health education and services.

Conclusions:

• Community-based health education programs developed through co-creation build trust and enhance community capacity.
• Design thinking is an effective tool for developing relevant health education initiatives and promoting civic participation.
• This approach shows potential for improving health education and public health relevance for marginalized populations.