The role of promotoras and other community health workers is often undervalued or underutilized by the mainstream public health system. The pandemic began to change that
For nearly three weeks, Fidelina Velazquez, who has diabetes and high blood pressure, debated whether to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The 59-year-old had been hospitalized for COVID-19 before vaccines were available and didn’t want to get sick again. But she had heard rumors that the vaccines could kill people or were meant to wipe out chronic disease patients like her.
In December 2020, when Yuma County became one of the hardest hit parts of the nation as agricultural activity peaked and COVID-19 case numbers soared among migrant farmworkers, promotoras advocated for and helped with testing, and later vaccination efforts, often between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. when these essential workers line up to commute from Mexico to Arizona’s fields.
The pandemic began to change that. Over the last two years, the federal government has increasingly invested in promotoras and other community health workers by funding states and counties to hire them or supporting them through nonprofit organizations and clinics, says Jill Guernsey de Zapien, a community-based public health expert at the University of Arizona.
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