Study uses promotoras to increase physical activity among Latinas

To improve Latinas’ health, a new five-year, $3.48 million National Institutes of Health study will use promotoras – trained community health workers – to lead culturally appropriate group education and exercise sessions for Latinas in a program called Enlace (a Spanish term that means to “connect” or “join”) in community centers in South Texas’ Lower Rio Grande Valley. “The idea behind Enlace is that, through this promotora intervention, Latinas will gain an otherwise-unavailable layer of social support to overcome barriers to activity and make positive behavioral changes – namely that Latinas engage in 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity on five or more days a week,” said study leader Deborah Parra-Medina, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor at the Institute for Health Promotion Research.