“Mi Casa Es Su Casa”: Beginning Exploration of Mexican Americans' Natural Helping

This article presents the findings of a pilot study on natural helping among Mexican Americans conducted in a large urban area of the Southwest. Twelve community-identified natural helpers were interviewed using the “Natural Helper Interview Schedule” utilized in previous studies in other parts of the country with European American subjects. As expansion of the earlier studies, the interview schedule was translated into Spanish and assessed for cultural appropriateness. The similarities found between the findings of the Mexican American sample and previous samples may suggest that natural helping is a cross-cultural phenomenon. At the same time, the unique trends identified among Mexican American respondents may indicate a stronger family connection to natural helping processes in this community. Respondents narrated the helping incidents as if the recipients and providers of help were all family members. A series of common trends emerged from the data gathered on helping incidents. Some of these trends suggest that natural helpers assisting recent immigrants used a doing type of helping style, but a facilitating style of helping was also reported for other recipients. Although these findings cannot be generalized, they provide important information about community-based natural helping networks and provide beginning comparison about natural helping characteristics among different ethnic groups. These findings can be of use by practitioners and policy makers as they attempt to reach the Mexican American community in a culturally competent manner.

Lay Health Advisors: A Strategy for Getting the Word out about Breast Cancer

Transforming natural helpers into lay health advisors (LHAs) is a complex undertaking. Using the North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program (NC-BCSP) as a case study, this article describes the steps involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating an LHA intervention, considering factors that make the LHA approach appropriate for the NC-BCSP's population, setting, and health focus. The authors review five phases of implementation (start-up, training, LHA activities, follow-up, resource mobilization) and discuss the NC-BCSP's evaluation strategies and tools in light of difficulties involved in assessing natural helping processes and impact. Program challenges related to resource needs, identification of natural helpers, and LHA monitoring and support also are considered. The authors describe ways in which one large group of older, rural, African American LHAs are helping establish countywide partnerships between health care providers, agencies, and local communities that support and sustain individual changes in health behavior.