Providing Culturally Appropriate Health Education and Information

Abstract

The ability of community health workers (CHWs) to provide culturally centered health education derives from their understanding of community norms, idioms, and worldviews, combined with their knowledge of health issues. CHWs provide culturally appropriate health education and information by conducting health promotion and disease prevention education in a manner that matches both the linguistic and cultural needs of the population. In this chapter, two teams describe CHWs’ role in health education, including ways CHWs have helped address breast cancer using culturally appropriate health education in Amish Country in Ohio and through examples of CHWs’ utilization of popular education in Oregon. The Ohio team describes how disproportionate breast cancer mortality rates among Amish women led to the development of Project Hoffnung (German for “Hope”) and the CHW lessons learned from training, research, and programs developed over two decades aimed at addressing the burden of breast cancer.

The Oregon team reviews the spectrum of health education approaches and provides an introduction to popular/people’s education (PE), which they view as the approach to education most consistent with the history and philosophy of the CHW model. PE, when practiced intentionally, can be trauma-informed, culturally centered, and decolonizing. Through three case studies, they show how CHWs and Community Education Workers (CEWs) currently use PE to increase knowledge about health and other topics at the individual, group, and community levels and provide recommendations for building CHWs’ capacity to use PE.

Authorship is organized alphabetically in ascending order by surname.