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Southwestern Colorado Area Health Education Center Receives $2,000 to Tell the Stories of Indigenous People Suffering From Food Insecurity
DURANGO, Colo. — The Southwestern Colorado Area Health Education Center (SWCAHEC) is a non-profit organization that strives to improve rural health in the eight Southwest counties of Colorado. SWCAHEC has a strong emphasis on supporting rural primary care, community health, and on developing a pipeline of students who will eventually be the region’s health professionals. Because of this work, SWCAHEC is the recipient of a $2,000 award from the Colorado Equity Compass (CEC) that will be used to uplift the voices of the population served by the nonprofit, notably Indigenous peoples who are suffering from food insecurity and other barriers to wellness. “The stories proposed as part of this project would be an extension of the work already in progress at SWCAHEC,” representatives say. “Stories included would be a combination of video, photo-voice (to also be included in the Indigenous Cookbook), bi-monthly posts in the SWCAHEC Pathways Newsletter to include data from CEC, part of the SWCAHEC website under a social determinants of health (SDOH) tab currently under development.” Notably, the stories will focus on barriers to wellness related to food insecurity for tribal members in Southwest Colorado as well as appropriately sharable traditional beliefs and practices related to food that can increase access to healthy foods and related wellness. “The food insecurity work is replicable and is part of a larger series on addressing social determinants of health in SW Colorado by educating and training healthcare professionals and promoting clinical community linkages,” SWCAHEC representatives went on. These products are below:
“Indigenous populations across Colorado are often greatly disadvantaged when it comes to the SDOH. The CEC is pleased to support SWCAHEC’s work in uplifting the voices of those populations suffering from food insecurity and other SDOH factors that impact the community’s long-term health and wellbeing,” says Project Lead Dr. Rachele Espiritu. Southwestern Colorado Area Health Education Center (SWCAHEC) is a health care workforce and community capacity building organization and it is working with providers, community organizations and community members to strategize about social needs revealed during clinical screenings. The organization work with the AHCM social needs screening tool that gives timely data on social determinants of health (SDOH) from clinical settings. Screening data results are commensurate with the Colorado Equity Compass (CEC) data and has demonstrated great need related to food insecurity in SWCAHEC’s region. Recently, the organization finished a survey of health care providers on attitudes and perceptions of food insecurity and is currently building programming to address stigma reduction, knowledge of resources, and strengthening clinical-community linkages in SW Colorado.
Trainings will include understanding inherent bias, recognizing how communication style can promote or deter community members from accessing needed resources to address social determinants and discussions around how referrals, clinical site resource provision and understanding local cultural beliefs about food can reduce food insecurity in our SWCAHEC’s region.
About the Colorado Equity Compass Across Colorado, communities are facing inequities that impact their health and wellbeing. Different factors, including systemic racism, a lack of affordable housing, and environmental concerns, contribute to these inequities.
As a project of The Colorado Trust, CEC helps communities — and the organizations that serve them — better understand these issues and advocate for change using data and stories. This work consolidates diverse resources, connects peers, and both aligns and empowers communities and institutions via its Equity Data Navigator. The model showcases inequities and the social determinants of health (SDOH) across communities. CEC also serves as a hub for community storytelling and information-sharing.
For more information and to view the data model, visit coequitycompass.org. For media inquiries, contact the CEC at hello@coequitycompass.org.