Zuzanne Martinez-Bristow, BA, MPH, Tobacco Free El Paso-CBHR, Community Voices El Paso, 1045 Falcon Head Lane, El Paso, TX 79912, Chun Feng, BS, MS, Healthcare PArtnership and Training Unit, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman School of Public Health, 2030 Speedway Ste 120, Tucson, AZ 85719, Luan Coalwell-Jensen, BS, Tobacco Control, Community Voices -El Paso, 1045 Falcon Head Ln, El Paso, TX 79912, 915-433-5238, lmcoalwell@hotmail.com, and Kavita P. Ahluwalia, DDS, MPH, School of Dental and Oral Surgery, Columbia University, Division of Community Health, 630 West 168 St, New York, NY 10032.

Community Voices-El Paso (CV El Paso) and its community partners have identified a number of methods to identify, educate and assist those ready to quit through both traditional and non-traditional systems of care. In El Paso, which has a large population of uninsured primarily Spanish-speakers, promotores (Community Health Workers), provide outreach and preventive education around the management of chronic diseases. Because this population does not routinely access or utilize the traditional health care system, CV El Paso partnered with Arizona’s Tobacco Education and Prevention Program to develop and implement tobacco control certification and training programs for professional and paraprofessional healthcare providers, including promotores. The program designed to certify promotores, train them to identify tobacco users and provide outreach, education and referral services as an adjunct to the normal standard of care. In the past year, 52 promotores were trained and certified. Of these, 88% were of Latino origin, 67 % were females and 62% indicated Spanish as their primary language. Pre-intervention data indicate that only 8% of the promotores had previous training in tobacco control. Although only 36% of the promotores felt they were able to assess readiness to quit before the training, 91% indicated confidence in their ability to assess readiness to quit post-training, and the proportion of promotores reporting ability to assist smokers quit increased from 55% to 91% post-training. Preliminary service data suggest that promotores can be an effective conduit for tobacco prevention education among the uninsured and hardest to reach.

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