Building Bridges to Better Health

Enhancing Latino Senior Services

"Our goal is to make our clinics and clinical interactions more senior-friendly. When you consider the cultural issues for Latino seniors - things like needing medication labels in Spanish to address health literacy problems - then we have to ask what that means across the board, from how we might change our waiting room to continuing with some of our good basic components, like pharmacy assistance, behavioral health, and chronic disease management." Viola Lujan, Regional Director for Contra Costa & Solano Counties, La Clínica de La Raza, Inc.

In Brief: La Clínica is expanding its work with seniors in Contra Costa County. This includes making its primary care clinics more senior-friendly and adding numerous senior services for its core population of Latinos.

The Health Issue: Through 2040, projections indicate that Contra Costa County's population of older adults (age 65 and older) will more than double. Various reports have found that gaps in services exist in everything from connecting seniors with primary health services to providing the housing, transportation, volunteer, and employment opportunities necessary to seniors maintaining health and quality of life. Latinos (especially those who are uninsured) are among the most likely not to have access to senior services.

The Health Improvement Strategy: There are three primary components:

• Increase senior's knowledge of how to improve their health and access community resources.
• Engage seniors in community advocacy and social action efforts. This includes sustaining and, perhaps, expanding the highly successful La Escuela de Promotores, which trains community members to make presentations about health in a variety of settings. It also includes a new Community Action Model, which trains people to work on advocacy issues, such as helping seniors qualify for programs like Medicare or Medi-Cal.
• Increase underserved and vulnerable seniors' access to health and social services.

Armed with a plan of action, La Clínica staff members are excited about implementing a number of senior-friendly additions and enhancements at the Monument and Pittsburg clinics, including:

• retinopathy screening for diabetic seniors
• bone density screening for older adults and participation in the Latino Osteoporosis Health Collaborative
• colon cancer screening for older adults
• a pilot-test of mobile optometry services
• senior-sensitive behavioral health and case management, including the hiring of senior case managers at both the Pittsburg and Monument clinics and plans to create a senior-friendly patient navigator program
• senior-sensitive clinic facility improvements and marketing materials

"These services are already proving their value at a time when health care cuts - including dental and vision care - are occurring throughout California. That's why it's critical that we keep these services in place as seniors use our clinics in ever-increasing numbers." - Jane García, La Clínica CEO