By Mia Stephens

At least 4 out of 10 Latino adults who participated in a Pew Research study say their community has worse health outcomes because of communication problems with health care workers caused by language barriers or cultural differences.

But in the Richmond region, non-profits like La Casa de la Salud (LCS), are making strides to address these barriers within the Latino population through community-engaged research and partnership-building efforts. La Casa de la Salud, which means the “House of Health,” is one of 10 organizations to receive an Academic-Community Partnership Grant from Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Division of Community Engagement.

Returning from a hiatus due to the pandemic, the Academic-Community Partnership Grant serves as a foundation to create thriving communities within Central Virginia through collaborative research and developing sustainable partnerships.

“We are saying to researchers and communities that there is a science behind developing these partnerships. It takes great intentionality and planning to develop a relationship that is mutually beneficial... [for] both the communities that we serve as well as the research agenda,” said Maghboeba Mosavel, Ph.D., associate vice president of community partnerships in the Division of Community Engagement in the Provost Office.

As part of the grant initiative, LCS is partnering with the VCU School of Public Health to translate research into actionable health policies that address challenges for the local Latino community to access health care and encourage participation in medical studies.

Nancy Valencia-Rojas, project leader from the Department of Social and Behavioral Science in the School of Public Health, says diversifying the pool of research participants is critical to ensuring public health information is effectively reaching all community members.

“We identified a gap in Latino participation in clinical studies at VCU. There is a need to understand the uniqueness that makes recruitment of Latino participants more difficult or easier,” Valencia-Rojas said. “La Casa de la Salud is a particularly important organization that has a big pool of community health workers and one of the largest communities of Spanish-speaking community health workers... By focusing on collaboration, [LCS and VCU] will learn the best way to assist the community together.”

LCS was founded in 2014 by Dr. Antonio M. Villa Payares, a graduate of VCU's Department of Epidemiology, based on findings of his M.P.H. research project on Latino health disparities. The nonprofit aimed to bridge gaps between the Crater Health District and the Latino population by addressing language barriers and teaching cultural appropriateness to increase access to preventive and primary care services. Today, their work has expanded to the Richmond area, Virginia Beach and Harrisonburg.

“Our hope is to create awareness, cultural competence, and cultural appropriateness through training,” Villa Payares said. “Hopefully we expand research opportunities to help approach the health disparities that we are seeing within the Latino populations to aid in eliminating and reducing barriers within the research side from an ethical standpoint.”

LCS also has long-standing relationships with the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the VCU School of Public Health, VCU School of Dentistry, and VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center. Villa Payares says this opportunity from the Division of Community Engagement will solidify the organization’s partnerships as well as foster trust, transparency, and empower the community members they work with by addressing health disparities and translating research into action.

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