Developing a Bilingual Health Education Program to Identify and Address Healthcare Misinformation in a Border Community

Abstract

El Paso Health Education and Awareness Team (EP-HEAT®) is a bilingual program focused on increasing health awareness and dispelling health-related misinformation in the U.S.-Mexico border region. EP-HEAT® consists of students, faculty, staff, and Promotoras. The primary objective of EP-HEAT® is to empower the community with healthcare resources in a culturally acceptable way. EP-HEAT® established the bilingual “In the Hot Seat with EP-HEAT®: Dispelling Myths in Healthcare” series commonly referred to as Myth Busters events. Community members were surveyed following the events. Our results showed the majority of EP-HEAT® event attendees identified as Hispanic and were older than 46 years of age. Following EP-HEAT® events, attendees felt comfortable teaching the information they learned to friends and family. Dispelling myths is instrumental for communities with limited access or knowledge of healthcare and diseases. EP-HEAT® events serve as a platform for evaluating the sources of community’s current health information, prevalence of healthcare myths, understanding the community’s health information needs, and disseminating accurate health information while dispelling myths in a culturally competent manner. Medical students need to become proficient in serving as educators, particularly in underserved areas. The skills developed by participating in EP-HEAT® myth-buster events provide information to the community while simultaneously providing opportunities for medical students to organize these events and allowing them to act as community-facing educators that may promote their professional identity development.