Like other minority groups in the United States, Hispanic patients experience several important health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, mental health issues, and certain types of cancer more frequently compared to non-Hispanic whites. Hispanics often face additional challenges that make it harder to access and benefit from primary care, including lower amounts of adequate insurance coverage, language barriers within the healthcare system, limited health literacy, economic barriers, and mistrust of the healthcare system.

As a result, when Hispanic patients face illness or disability, they may struggle to know what options are the best for their individual care. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has funded research relevant to the Hispanic population that is helping to answer many of these challenges, but for many of the same reasons that these challenges exist, Hispanic families may not be aware that there are choices available. The project team plans to change this by partnering with several Hispanic faith leaders and other community stakeholders in Northeast Florida.

The first objective will be to form a Hispanic Opportunities Panel for Patient Engagement en Español (HOPE2). This will be a 16-member panel made up of patient and caregiver representatives, healthcare providers, Hispanic faith leaders, educators, public health specialists, insurance payers, nutritionists, mental health counselors, and Hispanic media representatives. The second objective will be to develop and test a training curriculum for Hispanic-serving stakeholders in the region to educate them on the role of PCOR in addressing Hispanic health issues and, more importantly, teach them how to help Hispanic health consumers use PCOR information to improve their health and healthcare experiences.

Following the training, the project’s third objective will be to design and host a communitywide event called JAX Saludable (Healthy Jacksonville). This will be an opportunity to bring together 300+ Hispanic community members with a trained stakeholder team to further explore issues of health inequities affecting the Hispanic population. The project team will discuss how to improve the application of PCOR results to the primary care that patients receive in the region. The HOPE2 advisory panel will meet monthly to plan all of these activities in a collaborative process, and all of the stakeholders will be directly involved in the planning and execution of the community event.

The project’s long-term goal is to empower the community to understand PCOR and use it to improve Hispanic health. The team will share what it has learned with other Hispanic communities and work with its media partner to spread its message throughout the region.