Community Outreach and Community Mobilization: Options for Health at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Author: Meister, Joel S., Ph.D.
Date Published: 1996
This paper describes how and why two models, community outreach and community mobilization, can be implemented successfully in the U.S.-Mexico border region in order to increase access to health care services. Community outreach models share the recognition that a passive medical model is not effective in the border region for many reasons, some of them cultural, many of them economic. Community outreach programs aim to overcome a variety of these problems, including a lack of transportation or child care, lack of information, lack of fluency in English, and a view of health and illness that defines as appropriate for treatment of acute or emergent episodes only. Community mobilization models commonly stress high participation rates by community members, broad representation of local interests and "stakeholders," determination of needs, goals and objectives by community members rather than by "outside professionals," development of broad spectrum programs that include economic and political initiatives as well as specific health components, and grassroots control of programs. Most important, the community mobilization model is based on the recognition that health, including access to health care, is a systematic problem that, while reflected in the problems of individuals, is not caused by them. The combination or integration of both models, utilizing community health advisor-advocates, would likely generate desirable synergetic effects.
Date Published: 1996
This paper describes how and why two models, community outreach and community mobilization, can be implemented successfully in the U.S.-Mexico border region in order to increase access to health care services. Community outreach models share the recognition that a passive medical model is not effective in the border region for many reasons, some of them cultural, many of them economic. Community outreach programs aim to overcome a variety of these problems, including a lack of transportation or child care, lack of information, lack of fluency in English, and a view of health and illness that defines as appropriate for treatment of acute or emergent episodes only. Community mobilization models commonly stress high participation rates by community members, broad representation of local interests and "stakeholders," determination of needs, goals and objectives by community members rather than by "outside professionals," development of broad spectrum programs that include economic and political initiatives as well as specific health components, and grassroots control of programs. Most important, the community mobilization model is based on the recognition that health, including access to health care, is a systematic problem that, while reflected in the problems of individuals, is not caused by them. The combination or integration of both models, utilizing community health advisor-advocates, would likely generate desirable synergetic effects.
