Programs

Cardiovascular Initiative For The Latino Community Health (CVI-LCH)

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death in the Hispanic community when stroke and heart diseases are combined. This community has the lowest hypertension awareness and control among the different ethnic groups in the US. Additionally, they suffer from one of the highest uninsured rates in the country, particularly undocumented Latinos immigrant.
This program began in January 2016 in collaboration with the Church of Incarnation in Charlottesville, VA. 5-10 physicians, medical students, and community health workers volunteer twice a month for a period of 2 hours. It has served 640 people in more than 2500 visits and continues to grow. Members of the Church and other Latinos in the area are invited to register as program participants to monitor their blood pressure as frequently as they please and are tracked in a confidential electronic record. Following national guidelines for blood pressure screening, we provide participants with their readings, recommendations on returning for reassessment if elevated, and referrals to affordable medical care as needed. Each participant received a non-serologic CVD risk assessment that allows for personalized and culturally appropriate CVD and DM prevention counseling and educational material. Our collaboration with the CFC and our “Clinica Latina” has allowed access to blood pressure reassessment within 72 hours as needed as well as formal medical evaluation.

After each session, our care link coordinators call participants that need follow-up blood pressure evaluation, significant changes in lifestyle, or referred for medical evaluation. This call aims to provide further counseling and assistance for people to follow our recommendations.

We are currently executing a study evaluating knowledge and lifestyle affecting cardiovascular health and the efficacy of our program with a UVA IRB protocol.

Part of CVI-LCH has been the provision of more comprehensive cardiovascular and diabetes prevention community sessions. Since 2014, we have collaborated with two other non-profit organizations to offer two cardiovascular and diabetes mellitus risk assessment health fairs per year in the community. Each session has served between 30-60 people. We apply three validated risk assessment models to determine people’s 10-year risk of cardiovascular events and diabetes mellitus, provide counseling and referral if found at elevated risk. These models include the performance of Hemoglobin A1c and full lipid panels on-site.

Additionally, we offer the participants of our program, intermittent cardiovascular prevention community education sessions lead by our community health workers.

Compañeros Training And Empowerment Program (CTEP)

Community health workers (CHW) are trusted community members that understand their culture, needs, and struggles, that have been trained to work with health care professionals to promote wellness, prevent and manage chronic diseases and help coordinate medical care.  The Charlottesville area has had a group of community health workers trained in different stages over the past 15 years. Many of these CHWs have not been able to provide their acquired knowledge and passion to their community given the absence of coordinated settings and a support system around them.

Our Compañeros Training and Empowerment Program in Charlottesville began in 2015 in collaboration with the Thomas Jefferson Department of Health and other organizations. Having received their original CHW training at different moments in the past, our program offers the CHW advanced training and skill development sessions in important topics identified by the community and the CHWs.  CTEP supports the CHWs in applying their developing skills in defined community settings in collaboration with LHI and other organizations. The different topics and skills addressed over the past 3 years have been:

– Breaking the ice with individuals and public speaking
– Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
– Recognizing and acting upon a possible stroke in the community.
– Raising healthy Latino children
– Cancer Prevention
– Cervical Cancer Prevention and Early Detection
– Healthy Latino meals
– CPR only training
– Mental health and wellness for the immigrant community
– Leadership and group work
– Our 11 CHWs attend regularly other LHI activities to offer support to our activities as well as to deliver their educational skills to the community.
– In 2019, the CHWs participated 147 hours of continued education and more than 100 hours of community service.

This is our multifaceted community health program. Additional to ongoing health education provided in our other programs, Tardes de Salud delivers a topic of the month in 4 formats:

1. LHI Newsletter published on social media and physically distributed to more than 20 Latinx friendly locations.
2. CHW training on the topic and obtain their assistance in cultural validation of the message and presentations to be offered to community on the third week of the month. Community Health Workers are assigned a role for the session after proper education, coaching and preparation on the health topic of the month.
3. Interactive community health education sessions in Southwood Community and Church of Incarnation.
   • Southwood community is the largest Latino neighborhood in the Charlottesville area, housing more than 1500 people, 70% Latinos, predominantly low income families. Habitat for Humanity has provided community management over the past 10 years while they build community trust and plan the development of new affordable housing. In collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and other community organizations, LHI provides monthly health education session in their community center since January 2018.
   • Church of Incarnation is the largest Latino faith based organization in the Blue Ridge Health District and a longtime partner of LHI.
4. Tardes de Salud con Sin Barreras is the final educational event of the month.  In partnership with Sin Barreras, a recognized non-profit organization serving the Latinx community, we hold Facebook Live interview-presentation of the topic of the month with our invited topic experts.

Most Recent Topics Addressed:

• Pediatric nutrition
• Health career paths
• COVID update
• Alcohol abuse and minority health
• Safe swimming and sun safety during the summer
• The health of the Latino man – physical and mental health
• HPV vaccination and cervical cancer prevention
• Healthy back to school and developmental milestones
• Science Based Community Health Recommendations: Avoiding Misinformation
• Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer Awareness
• Overweight and Adult Diabetes – Strategies for weight loss

“La Clínica Gratuita”

Since 2016, the Latino Health Initiative (LHI) of the University of Virginia has partnered with the Charlottesville Free Clinic (CFC) to provide free medical care for the Central Virginia Latinx community. In years prior, the program was known as Clínica Latina, and was held twice per month during the evenings with a culturally competent and linguistically appropriate model of care. As the cultural and language concordance healthcare proved successful and became very attractive to the community, the volume of patients required a new approach. In July 2023, the Clínica Latina transitioned into the Clínica Gratuita model with expansion to all the hours that the CFC is open where at least one medical provider and a group of support volunteer staff are bilingual and experienced in caring for Latinx patients.

Hours of Operation

Monday and Tuesday: 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Wednesday: 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Thursday: 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Friday: 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday: 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM