Hispanic Role Models in Health Care Careers
Project Website(s)
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Abstract
The National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN), in association with the Hispanic Communications Network (HCN), proposes to address the shortage of bilingual professionals in all health fields by recruiting and interviewing bilingual role models and arranging to broadcast those interviews nationwide. Leveraging HCN’s nationally broadcast health education radio shows, whose cumulative audiences are larger than
NPR’s “All Things Considered,” this project has the potential to reach one out of every three US Hispanics during its first five years. This media campaign is intended to inspire Hispanic parents to encourage their children to study science and aspire to careers in the biomedical professions. It is also intended to inspire and empower Spanish-speaking adults from all walks of life to consider careers in the health professions. All broadcasts will tie to NAHN’s interactive website so that students and adults interested in changing careers can find mentors and educational resources. NAHN will also use Youtube, Facebook, mobile phone applications, and other new and popular social media technologies to reach a broad cross-section of English speaking youth and young adults. In addition to the national media outputs, attendees at NAHN’s annual conferences will have the opportunity to receive training in public speaking and media relations so they can more effectively use local media in their own communities to address health disparities and promote careers in the biomedical and health professions. NAHN will develop a standardized, bilingual Toolkit for public presentations. The Toolkit will include a PowerPoint presentation embedded with video containing gender and other- stereotype-busting role model interviews with Hispanic nurses; links to an online database of volunteer mentors; and a bilingual terminology packet that will aid
nurses in creating linguistic and cognitive bridges between audience and professional knowledge bases. We expect that the refined Toolkit will empower nurses and other health professionals to become more effective public health educators and career role models during their presentations at community health events, career fairs, achievement clubs, and school assemblies. An Advisory Committee of other health organizations, professionals, and advocates will recommend Role Models and provide periodic feedback. Bilingual independent evaluators associated with the UC Berkeley School of Public
Health will conduct qualitative and quantitative formative, iterative, and summative evaluations throughout the project. Their recommendations and findings will be incorporated into the project design and deliverables and shared with relevant fields. -
Dissemination Strategies
Broadcast media, social media (see abstract).
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Project Evaluation(s)
Xochitl Castaneda from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health has agreed to perform the up-front, formative and summative evaluation of this project during its entire five (5) year span. She is bilingual and is an expert in communicating health education to Hispanics and in increasing Hispanic access to care (see abstract above).
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Resources for Sharing
Empowerment tool kit, social media, videos, websites (see abstract).
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Additional Information
Websites, videos, audio files, PowerPoint, and social media designed to empower role models to reach out to Hispanic parents and students (see abstract).
Project Audience
Hispanic students and parents considering nursing as a career choice.
Subjects Addressed
Promotion of Hispanic nursing role models who can educate potential Hispanic youth and their parents about the need and benefits of nursing.
