TACKLING LATINO/HISPANIC HEALTH DISPARITIES
IN WOOD, MARATHON, CLARK, & LINCOLN COUNTIES

SITUATION
In the spring of 2006, the Alliance to Help Others Reach Awareness AHORA consortia of Central Wisconsin wrote and received a 3 year federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. The overarching goal of year one of the grant was to reduce health disparities in the Latino/Hispanic population in a four county area in Central WI., Wood, Marathon, Clark and Lincoln Counties by increasing access to health care, providing health information and education, increasing direct health care services, improving occupational health and safety and developing community capacity and infrastructure to deliver culturally competent health care services. The grant was written with the understanding that the development of the partnerships created for the grant will provide regional and cross systems coordination to better assess needs and identify priorities for future systems and service development. The role of the Marathon County Family Living Agent Jackie Carattini was to facilitate the evaluation requirements of the grant.

RESPONSE
From May 2006 through April 2007 Carattini worked with the grant partners to develop specific evaluation tools for each arm of the grant. The first tool was to develop a tracking system for community health outreach workers to track the needs of the Latino clientele both coming into a Latino resource centers and also those calling a toll free telephone help line. The second was to work with Children’s Service Society to develop a pre/post survey used by healthcare navigators as they assist Hispanic/Latino individuals to access and benefit from community resources to meet their needs. Lastly, a pre/post survey on occupational health and safety information was developed for use with both Hispanic workers and their employers in a variety of educational settings. All of these methods were then tracked and compiled into a year one results report by Carattini.

RESULTS
As a result of this data collection the consortia was able to show enough progress toward their intended outcomes to receive year twos funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. The consortia was also able to use the data gathered to change approaches and tools used for year 2 of the grant according to the comments and data from the evaluations received to better reach the intended clientele. The data gathered was also used as evidence to support another grant that was written to address new needs in the Latino community in Central Wisconsin that were identified through the evaluation process. This data was also shared with community organizations to support changes in their systems to better serve the Latino community.

Jackie Carattini, Family Living Agent - 2007 Success Story

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