Health promoters in Dallas guide Hispanics about covid-19 and prevention of other diseases

When Denise Hernández was younger and a passionate student, her grandmother told her to quit school and better get married.

“Because you know that in our culture it is more common to marry and have children very young,” Hernández said with a smile, remembering the sayings of the Mexican grandmother.

But she kept studying.

She is now married, the mother of two girls, and at age 33, she has a Ph.D. in Public and Urban Administration from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), a Master of Public Health from Texas A&M University, and a Bachelor of Science in Health Allied by the same institution.

Hernández is also the executive director of the DFW Community Health Workers Association (DFW-CHW), an organization of more than 100 health promoters that he founded six years ago in Dallas-Fort Worth.

For her community work, the Ford Motor Company included her in the list of “Legendary women”Along with 19 other Latinas in the United States for Hispanic Heritage Month.

During the covid-19 pandemic, his organization of health promoters seeks to educate people to get vaccinated.

They go to churches, recreation centers like the YMCA, and other health events where they are invited to answer questions, talk to people, and take a series of surveys to understand why people continue to inadvertently receive a vaccine to protect themselves from the disease. new coronavirus.

“We are trying to do what we can,” Hernández said in an interview.

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It has seen a before and after since the covid-19 pandemic began. Before, Hernández said, their work wasn’t highly valued, but with the new coronavirus they got a first budget in six years, and they won a grant to promote prevention and vaccination in Tarrant County.

“Since covid started, everyone has understood the importance of having a better relationship with the community in order to reach them more effectively. Perhaps a doctor tells you what to do, but it is more likely that you will listen to someone you trust, who you know and with whom you have a relationship, ”Hernández explained about his task.

“One good thing that has come out of all this is that there are more organizations and more people who are seeing the value of health promoters.”

In Texas, she said, health promoters struggle to find paid work and associations like hers only get funds from scholarships that end in one or two years.

“We would very much like to be able to advocate for hospitals and more organizations to make the effort to incorporate more health promoters as part of their organization, without having to depend on the grants (scholarships) ”, he stated.

“Until this year I have the position of executive director, until this year we have a grant for covid, this is the only way we have been able to pay our promoters; apart from the grant, everything is voluntary ”.

The promoters are women who have a separate full-time job and only on weekends or in the afternoons do health awareness work among the residents of their neighborhoods.

“Our organization works a lot in the community trying to educate and offer prevention services, and many times the one who needs this most is the Hispanic community,” he said.

Hernández is satisfied with what she does and feels that it comes naturally to her.

When she was a child, she said, she helped her mother translate her messages if they went to the doctor, helped her do her paperwork, accompanied her to the places where she was faced with a language that was not her own.

“I have worked as a health promoter for many years without knowing that what I was doing was a profession, it is part of who I am,” she commented.

His mom and dad are originally from Mexico. She was born in San Antonio and moved to Dallas after studying for a bachelor’s degree in College Station. Upon arriving in this city, he realized that despite the need to promote health, there were no communities or organizations in this regard.

In 2013 she began to communicate with other promoters in the area, they met in person and after two years they founded the organization. The one hundred members have dinner together every three months, offering resources and health education for the population closest to their homes.

“Of course I was going to want to continue helping our community after graduating, health promoters were a profession, this is where I should be,” he said. “Our promoters advocate for their community.”

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