AVANCE CENTER
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF
IMMIGRANT/REFUGEE HEALTH
Mark Edberg, PhD, MA
Avance Center Director
Sean D. Cleary, PhD, MPH
Avance Center Co-Director
AVANCE CENTER OVERVIEW
What is the Center? A P20 Exploratory Research Center (2012-2017) funded by the
National Institute on Minority Health & Health Disparities (NIMHD) within the National
Institutes of Health
What do P20 Centers do? P20 Centers are intended to address health disparities
in specific populations through:
-community collaboration
-capacity building
-engagement
-exploratory research on interventions and contributing factors
The Avance Center is focused on understanding and addressing disparities
among Latino and other immigrant/refugee populations.
WHY FOCUS ON HEALTH DISPARITIES IN
IMMIGRANT/REFUGEE POPULATIONS?
The unprecedented population
growth among immigrants in
the U.S. has not been
accompanied by increased
monitoring of immigrant health
HOW DOES THE
AVANCE CENTER
ADDRESS THESE ISSUES?
•
•
•
•
•
•
University-community collaboration
A community intervention for the prevention of
substance abuse, sex risk, and violence among
Latino immigrant youth
Promoting youth and community engagement (e.g.,
online, social media,YouTube, new technologies)
Community/university capacity building,
dissemination
As a platform for future efforts/collaborations
Through the new CDC REACH grant (focus on
poor nutrition).
AVANCE CENTER COMPONENTS
Cores: Administrative, Research, Training and Community Engagement & Outreach –
each “core” has a defined set of activities related to the overall mission.
Community Partners: Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers, Rivera Group,
collaborations with the Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative, Prince George’s
County Public Schools, multiple community organizations
Collaboration: Community Participatory Research Team (CPRT) and Community
Advisory Board (CAB).
LANGLEY PARK, MD
Our partner community for the Adelante intervention – just outside of
Washington, DC
Population of 20,675 with 79.7% self-classified as Hispanic (Census 2012)
Youth are primarily from El Salvador (46.5%), Guatemala (32.9%), Honduras
(10.4%), and other Central and South American countries (recent Adelante
data)
RATIONALE FOR NEW ADELANTE
INTERVENTION
Based on our previous research, we knew it would be important to develop
an intervention that worked at different levels of the community – at
the individual, family, and community levels, at the same time.
We decided on a Positive Youth Development (PYD) theoretical
framework, which emphasizes the relationship between people and
their community as a strategy for prevention – building community
capacity and social fabric to create a better prevention environment.
PERSON-ENVIRONMENT
CONTEXT
CURRENT WORK: ADELANTE MULTI-LEVEL
INTERVENTION, IMPACT AND OUTCOMES
Intervention components
-Youth Leadership and Advocacy
Program
-Parents as Leaders Program
-Academic Support Programs
-Career Exploration/Job
Readiness Training
-Multi-Family Dinners
-Recreational Activities
-Health Literacy Training
-Youth Prevention Sessions
_-Website and Media Activities
-Drop-in Center & Support
Services
-Case Management
-Connections to CAB
Impacts
Improvement In:
• Competence (PYD*)
• Confidence (PYD)
• Connection (PYD)
• Contribution (PYD)
• Future Expectations
• Positive Identity
• Perceived Discrimination
• Person-Environment Context
*PYD=positive youth
development
Outcomes
Decreased behavior related to
substance use, sexual risk &
interpersonal violence
CURRENT WORK: ADELANTE
BRANDING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Current Work: Training, Capacity Building, Public Fora
New course
developed called
GWU students
“Keeping Up With
First annual
conducting master’s the New America: conference held in
Development of
and doctoral level
Latino and
May 2013, the
research as well as Immigrant Health
community capacity
second
was
held
on
practicums
building activities in
Disparities.”
September
25,
2014.
(internships) in the
process.
Next
Fall
will
be
the
Co-taught
with
community or with
third!
community
study data.
partner
organization staff.
TRANSDISCIPLINARY AND STUDENT
INVOLVEMENT IN THE AVANCE CENTER
•
Students conducting culminating experience (CE) projects in the
community.
•
Doctoral students conducting research in the community or with other
related immigrant/refugee populations.
•
Students participating in, even spearheading Center activities – examples
include the tutoring and community garden projects, with extensive
support from GW Puentes (campus civic engagement group of Spanish
bilingual students).
•
Special research projects needed for the Center.
•
Students helping to assess the availability of nutritious food and drinking
water in the Langley Park community (for the REACH project).
ADELANTE - LA CASITA
HOW HAVE STUDENTS BEEN INVOLVED?
Community Boundary Study
Anthropology and public health
students, with community partners,
walked the perimeter of the area
and conducted ~140 intercept
interviews
ASSET MAPPING PROJECT
PHOTOVOICE PILOT PROJECT
(GLORIANA SOJO-LARA, IDALINA CUBILLA)
COMPUTER SKILLS TRAINING
Training in:
• Health Literacy
• Computer Literacy
ENGAGING STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
ON THE GWU CAMPUS
GW Puentes students offer tutoring services every Saturday in Langley Park
COMMUNITY GARDEN PILOT
(GLORIANA SOJO-LARA)
“More than 50 community members showed up to help us
plant, set up the beds, and participate in various
activities. This community garden was a final project for
the GW World on a Plate course with Chef Jose Andres,
so here is the video my group and I made:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z83K2WHEO2k
GW STUDENT RESEARCH
MPH Practicum Projects
Doctoral Coursework
Becky Elstad (Asset Mapping)
Paige Kulie (Asset Mapping)
Will Seymour (Planning organized
sports activities for community)
Molly Gribbins (Process data collection,
organization, operationalization)
Lyda Holguin Palacios - Education
(Counseling) PhD
MPH CE Projects
Molly Gribbins (Operationalizing
exposure measures)
Doctoral Dissertations
Idalina Cubilla – Epidemiology PhD
Laura Mlynarski – Psychology PhD
CONTACT US…
Avance Center for the Advancement of Immigrant / Refugee Heath
Milken Institute School of Public Health
The George Washington University
email: info@avancegw.org
website: avancegw.org
Twitter: @avancecentergw
Facebook: AvanceCenteratGW