Development of a Curriculum and Training Program for Community Health Promoters in Vulnerable Communities in Puerto Rico

The Community Training Institute for Health Disparities (CTIHD) designed a curriculum for a community health promotion program to provide training and enable community members to facilitate community action by empowering individuals with health education, knowledge, and skills to respond to community health needs, specifically to vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico which had already being affected by natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and migration. A problem-based curriculum design that integrates a competency-based learning model, which included the creation and development of two courses: Introduction to Community Health Promotion and Community Wellness & Health Promotion. Each course consisted of 10 sessions lasting three hours per session. The assessment per session included a pre- and post-test and overall evaluation of the session, and a discussion or practice exercise at the end of the session. Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentage) were performed to develop the profile of community participants. Central tendency measures (mean and median), and dispersion measures (variance and standard deviation) were used to describe the scores. Twelve (12) community leaders from different southern municipalities of Puerto Rico were recruited. Of these, nine completed the first course and eight completed the second (75% retention rate for Course 1 and 67% retention rate for Course 2). An 18% (difference of 1.2) increase in knowledge was obtained for Course a and a 16% (difference of 0.85) for Course 2. This curriculum enhances communities' resources, providing their leaders with the necessary competencies to impact health behavior, promote prevention, and become a health promoter within their communities.