Over the last three years, BUILD awardees have been working toward addressing social determinants of health and advancing health equity in their communities. To commemorate the end of our third cohort and spotlight their impactful work, we will be sharing each of our 18 communities’ stories — highlighting the partners’ collaborative approach to creating meaningful change in their community, the challenges they faced, and the transformative impact of these efforts for residents.
Residents in the predominately Hispanic White Horse Road Corridor (WHRC) neighborhood in Greenville, SC, continue to lack access to healthy foods and parks due to pervasive segregation and racial discrimination along with feelings of distrust and language barriers that discourage this community from seeking out health services or even going to local parks, and ultimately impacting their health.
Through Greenville’s BUILD collaborative, Build Trust, Build Health helps foster a trusting and inclusive community where all WHRC residents not only have equitable access to health and health-promoting resources such as healthy eating and active living, but are comfortable in utilizing them. And as a result, reducing Hispanic youths susceptibility to diabetes and other life-threatening chronic illnesses.
Over the past three years, the Greenville BUILD community has been able to:
- Conduct nine focus groups with 61 community members and 20 one-on-one stakeholder interviews to better understand residents’ experiences;
- Partner with the healthy, culturally-appropriate food program, Canasta Básica to serve over 1,600 families in a 12-month period, with more than $157K invested in food access for families;
- And conduct community trainings with 250+ providers to discuss the importance of language justice and cultural inclusion
“If we can impact our Spanish community, we will have a very healthy next generation. In two to three years we will see big change—it’s not a fast process.”
—Antonia Camacho, Hispanic Alliance
Read more about Build Trust, Build Health’s impact in Greenville, SC and stay tuned weekly for more BUILD community stories!
