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Developing Services with a Community Health Fair
Southwest of Seattle, not far from Sea-Tac airport, Associate Professor of Psychosocial and Community Health Frances Munet-Vilaró is engaging nursing students in the development of needed services for residents of two Burien apartment complexes who might not otherwise access health care because of language or other socio-cultural barriers.

Munet-Vilaró, a native of Puerto Rico, first conducted a yearlong community health assessment of the largely Latino but also African- American, Vietnamese, Cambodian and African refugee residents by knocking on apartment doors and asking families what kind of health services they needed. After collaborating with Project Look, a community organization serving these populations, and other community partners to determine what they could provide, she invited undergraduate and graduate advanced community health nursing students "to fill in the gaps."

A nursing student teaches dental hygiene to a young resident of an underserved community.

The students decided that the best approach would be a community health fair, and they set to work finding volunteers from both the local community and the UW School of Dentistry to provide residents with information about diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, breast cancer, family planning and dental care. Working with the local Rotary Club, undergraduate students also set up meetings with local health and social service agencies to initiate the process of establishing a walk-in clinic in a church basement where volunteers will offer free consultations, x-rays and laboratory work. Munet-Vilaró says that the volunteers hope to initiate this service in the near future and that it might serve as a model for other communities in a state where Latinos make up 7.6% of the total population.

Although the majority of her students do not speak Spanish, says Munet-Vilaró, "they notice the difference with culturally-appropriate behaviors, and have gained tremendous sensitivity to the stigmas associated with certain illnesses." However she is also concerned about the lack of opportunities for more Latinos to pursue nursing careers because of financial and educational barriers and family obligations. "We need to find non-traditional ways to help these people fit nursing education into their lives," she says.

For her own part, Munet-Vilaró talks about nursing careers at every chance she gets, such as with young students in "La Escuelita," an after-school program in the apartment complex where Munet-Vilaró and her students work (see cover). "For many, it's their first introduction to nursing," she explains, "and I try to show them some of the many wonderful things nurses can do to help people in their own communities."

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