REACH Detroit Partnership
Preventing diabetes and diabetes complications in the African American and Hispanic communities in eastside and southwest Detroit.

Community Health Worker Diabetes Randomized Control Trial for Latinos

The current cohort of REACH is an NIH-funded, community-based participatory research (CBPR) project that aims at reducing disparities in type 2 diabetes through the use of community health workers among Latino residents in Southwest Detroit. In REACH, community health workers are peer health educators, who share the same cultural experience and neighborhood as their clients. The treatment in the intervention group is a culturally tailored course on diabetes management, taught by community health workers and based on empowerment principles. In contrast, the control group's curriculum consists of a one session class on understanding clinical values related to diabetes and their complications, but receives no interactions with a community health worker. Thus, the goal of this cohort is to assess the incremental effect of a community health worker delivering a curriculum that has been effective in the previous two cohorts.