Enabling and Sustaining the Activities of Lay Health Influencers: Lessons From a Community-Based Tobacco Cessation Intervention Study
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2008
Keywords
tobacco cessation, brief interventions, lay health workers, community health workers, social risk
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839908318288
Abstract
The authors present findings from a community-based tobacco cessation project that trained lay health influencers to conduct brief interventions. They outline four major lessons regarding sustainability. First, participants were concerned about the impact that promoting cessation might have on social relationships. “Social risk” must be addressed during training to ensure long-term sustainability. Second, formal training provided participants with an increased sense of self-efficacy, allowed them to embrace a health influencer identity, and aided in further reducing social risk. Third, material resources functioned to mediate social tensions during health intervention conversations. A variety of resources should be made available to health influencers to accommodate type of relationship, timing, and location of the interaction. Finally, project design must be attentive to the creation of a “community of practice” among health influencers as an integral part of project sustainability. These lessons have broad implications for successful health promotion beyond tobacco cessation.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Health Promotion Practice, v. 11, issue 4, p. 483-492
Scholar Commons Citation
Castaneda, Heide; Nichter, Mark; Nichter, Mimi; and Muramoto, Myra, "Enabling and Sustaining the Activities of Lay Health Influencers: Lessons From a Community-Based Tobacco Cessation Intervention Study" (2008). Anthropology Faculty Publications. 113.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/ant_facpub/113
