Community Health Workers Combatting LA Food Insecurity

Food insecurity and access to basic needs

Applying a proven solution to a new issue or sector (using an existing model, tool, resource, strategy, etc. for a new purpose)

Food insecurity, malnutrition, and obesity critically undermine livelihoods in LA, particularly among Latinos (746,000 living in food-insecure households below 300% of the Federal Poverty Level) and African Americans, who suffer the highest obesity and diabetes rates (Latinos 13.5%, African Americans 12.4%). These diet-related diseases, exacerbated by poor nutrition and social isolation—equally as dangerous as smoking or inactivity (CDC 2020)—disproportionately impact under-resourced communities. Concurrently, systemic barriers, including racism and economic inequities, hinder people of color from underrepresented communities from becoming active players in the realm of public health (such as credentialed dietitians), limiting culturally relevant avenues to tackle these urgent health issues. FEAST recognizes the urgency to empower the communities we work with through training and developing local leadership, to address and mitigate these critical problems.

Since 2016, FEAST has successfully trained community members as Health Educators (HEs) to lead our Wellness Program in South LA. We will innovate our HE training curriculum with modules developed by dietetic interns from minority groups we serve, addressing the public health equity gap (where 70% of dietitians are white women).
These new modules will provide culturally-tailored nutrition and health messaging, focusing on the impacts of food insecurity trauma. This grant will enable us to enhance our free resources, deliver culturally relevant nutrition education, and create capacity-building opportunities for promotoras.
For the first time, we will recruit 30 promotoras from partner organizations to participate in our programs, of whom 15 will be later certified as HEs. HEs will receive free licenses to implement our Wellness curriculum, with 4 directly contracted to facilitate 2 Wellness groups for 30 participants total. FEAST will connect additional HEs with food distribution partners to offer wrap-around services. These HEs will also teach workshops, share community resources, and assist with referrals and enrollment to various social benefit programs. Plus, the HEs will have access to the new training modules, and we will collect their feedback to ensure the curriculum is culturally relevant and responsive to community health and nutrition needs. We will use this feedback to iterate our training modules before making them available to the wider community in Los Angeles.

In the short term, FEAST will develop new training modules by dietitians of color with culturally relevant nutrition messaging, engage 30 promotoras in our Wellness Programs as workforce development, and pilot free curriculum licenses for Health Educators (HEs) at partner sites. We aim to measure the effectiveness of these licenses by creating paid community health worker roles, and as an avenue to scale our impact.
In the long term, FEAST seeks to help with capacity building for other organizations in Los Angeles working in food security and health. We envision FEAST's program becoming a model for training community health workers that are then able to access paid work, offering free resources to partners, and establishing a pipeline of HEs advocating for food security, nutrition education, and policy change in LA. Success will transform LA by enhancing food access, nutrition education, and community health advocacy in underserved areas through empowered local promotora leadership.

Promotoras will develop skills in teaching, coaching, communication, and capacity building in order to provide culturally relevant nutrition and food assistance programs. Through surveys and testimonials, we see that:
100% gain valuable communication skills and group facilitation techniques after the training 60% of Wellness Program graduates increase fruit/veg intake by end of program
“This experience has inspired me to bring FEAST to my community.”
“We learned how to feed ourselves so that we have a better quality of life, which leads to better health, emotional state, and a better relationship with our family and community.”
Impact is also measured by: A total of 750 hours of training and 784 hours of work experience provided to 30 promotoras
3340 community members reached through Wellness Programs, workshops, and outreach
% receiving a referral to health or social services will indicate receipt of services
# EBT enrollments 35,280 lbs of produce and $14,400 grocery gift cards

Esperanza Community Housing (ECH) will partner with FEAST to engage their promotoras to join FEAST’s training and certification program. ECH’s role will be to recruit trainees from among their promotores program, promote the professional development opportunity, and host the training series on site. ECH’s Director of Promotores Program will oversee the programmatic partnership and provide support to ECH’s Promotores as they complete and graduate from the training, working with FEAST to then teach FEAST’s Wellness Programs. In total, FEAST and Esperanza will recruit 30 promotoras from Esperanza, train 15 of them as Health Educators, and then hire 4 of them to teach each wellness group in pairs. Trained HE from ECH will gain the skills to lead workshops as part of the project.