Border Environmental Health Coordination Project

The Border Environmental Health Coordination project was funded for three years by the EPA and HRSA in August, 2005.  The goal of this project is to determine if health education using promotoras is capable of affecting clinical outcomes.  Although the short-term outcome of pesticide exposure was selected as an endpoint for the study, the implications of the results should also apply to longer-term outcomes on disease prevention.  The project has three main parts including promotora training, community health education, and assessments.  A home safety module was prepared to focus on sources of injury in the home and proper use and storage of pesticides.  Initially, this module was delivered to a group of promotoras.  The promotora training program is being evaluated using pre- and post test to assess improvements in knowledge.  A group of 100 promotoras will receive the “How Safe is Your Home?” education and another group of 100 promotoras who do not receive the education will serve as the control.  Responses from the group receiving the intervention will be compared to those from the promotoras control group.  The community health education portion of this project will be evaluated in similar fashion.  A group of l00 community members receiving the education intervention will be compared to the control group, 100 community members not receiving the intervention.  This portion will utilize pre- and post-tests of knowledge, technical, and visual assessments of the homes to evaluate the effectiveness of the “How Safe is Your Home?” module. The visual assessments of the homes are aimed at determining if the participants are actively applying the safety tips and knowledge gained from the educational experience.  The responses will be compared between the two groups, as well as pre-education to post-education responses. The data from these responses will be evaluated to assess the improvement in knowledge as a result of the health education training.  In addition, childhood exposure to pesticides will be measured in half of the control and intervention group.  Urinary elimination of pesticides will be compared in children from families before and after the delivery of the health education module.  The initial exposure measurements were collected from April through May of 2006, followed by delivery of the health education material and a second exposure measurement.