Engagement In Context: Making Meaning Of The Latino Community Health Engagement Process

This study advances theory and practice in public relations engagement by localizing its circumstances, strategies, and outcomes with a focus on the unique characteristics of an ethnic group in a specific context: the Latino community health context. We argue that the effectiveness of an engagement program is bounded by the contextual specificity. We interviewed 23 Latino community health organization representatives and analyzed how they made sense of the challenges of community engagement, the preferred engagement strategies that met these challenges, and the positive consequences of such engagement. The findings revealed multilevel and intersecting factors on engagement challenges that included cultural values and beliefs, immigration experiences and status, socioeconomic status, and policy implications to insurance and funding. The engagement strategies that the healthcare workers preferred reflected cultural consideration in the choice of channel (ethnic language mass media), messaging (bilingual staff and culturally relevant health content), trust building and interpersonal connection, socioeconomic political factors, and community-driven two-way interaction and genuine care. The positive consequences reflected community empowerment, including helping the community members build a sense of belonging and ownership, and developing efficacy at both the individual and the collective levels.