The Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities works closely with the communities hit hardest by COVID-19.

CEAL Teams are currently working in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, DC Metro Area, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, and Texas.

Find FAQs, fact sheets, and other resources developed by CEAL teams you can share to provide accurate information and encourage people to get informed and take steps to overcome COVID-19.

Visit NIH CEAL : https://covid19community.nih.gov/

Samantha Sabo, DrPH, MPH associate professor of health sciences and CHER senior researcher serves as an MPI for the Arizona CEAL.

NAU co-investigators are: Regents’ Professor Julie Baldwin, CHER director; Nicolette Teufel-Shone, associate director of CHER; Naomi Lee, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; assistant professors Linnea Evans and Amanda Pollitt in the Department of Health Sciences and CHER; Heather Williamson, associate professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy and CHER; Joseph Mihaljevic, assistant professor of NAU’s School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems; and Dulce Jiménez and Omar Gomez, CHER research coordinators.

Use the CEAL communications toolkit to find free flyers, and COVID-19 vaccine talking points in English and Spanish.

Below are published articles on the Center for Health Equity Research’s (CHER) AZ CEAL work:

• A tribal health care model that works
• 7-part COVID-19 vaccine video series provides needed community health worker training
• Calling youth: ‘It’s Our Turn’ contest, ‘I Got the Shot’
• NAU researchers expand COVID-19 education and outreach through key collaborations
• CHER partners with ASU, UA, Mayo Clinic and the Arizona Community Health Worker Association to form CEAL COVID Consortium
• Processing COVID-19 through art

CHWs/CHRs Promotoras know their community best!

Community health workers — also referred to as community health representatives and promotoras — are “frontline public health workers who are trusted members of the communities they serve,” according to the American Public Health Association. As such, they have a unique understanding of their community’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including:

• challenges
• barriers
• concerns
• fears
• hesitancies
• misinformation
• myths

Through CEAL, NAU researchers partnered with the Arizona Community Health Workers Association (AzCHOW) to develop and disseminate accurate, up-to-date COVID-19 information for community health workers to give to their communities.

To learn about what local communities are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic and their opinions and beliefs, we conducted focus groups with CHWs/CHRs Promotoras. Their ideas and opinions are used to develop and adapt COVID-19 educational materials and health education messages. CHWs and CHRs then use the materials to serve their clients for COVID-19 prevention, including COVID-19 vaccine education and COVID-19 research.

To access the videos, please fill out the following registration:

CEAL’s It’s Our Turn contest invited youth and young adults between ages of 14 to 25 to share their creative take on a health message about COVID-19 vaccination, wearing a mask, or another pandemic-related health effect on youth. There were 12 winners selected by Arizona community members — each winning a $250 gift card.

Congratulations to the It’s Our Turn Youth Contest winners and all who submitted their creative work to spread a positive health message about COVID-19.

This report describes the results of focus groups with 30 CHWs/promotores serving Hispanic/Latinx populations of Arizona during the pandemic, as collected in January–February 2021.

Results highlight the fear and misinformation surrounding the prevention and control of COVID-19 and newly available COVID-19 vaccine among Hispanic/Latinx CHW clients.

Click on the report below to access the full report.

This report  collates the in-depth experiences of American Indian-serving CHRs during the pandemic, as collected in February–March 2021.

Results from the two CHR Programs of Arizona with a total of 13 CHRs in early 2021 highlight the challenges experienced by American Indian clients during the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccine concerns and motivations, strategies employed by CHRs to improve vaccine confidence, and CHR experiences during COVID-19.

Click on the report below to access the full report.

This research brief provides updates on the in-depth experiences of both Latinx-serving CHWs/promotores and American Indian-serving CHRs during the pandemic as collected in August 2021. It updates focus group results conducted in January – March 2021 with CHWs, CHRs, and Promotoras about experiences with COVID-19.

Through additional conversations in August 2021 with 11 Hispanic/Latinx and American Indian serving CHW/Rs, results highlight updated COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and CHW/R strategies to build vaccine confidence among parents and youth as well as CHW/R clients in general. Data was analyzed using a rapid assessment procedure to allow for rapid decision-making and planning.

Click on the report below to access the full brief.