History

The initial impetus for the formation of Honduran Health Alliance (HHA) stems from UNC student-conducted research in the mountainous provinces of El Corpus and Concepcion de Maria. Currently, the health care needs of these villages are served by lay health workers and nurses who receive minimal training, but are able to distribute contraception and antibiotics. For more involved clinical care, villagers must travel up to 50 miles to the nearby town of Choluteca, or rely on traditional or herbal methods. Through individual interviews and focus groups designed to explore unmet needs, it became clear to the initial  UNC student researchers that community members desired more complete health information, especially about reproductive health issues. Community women and United Communities (UC) board members alike were very drawn to the idea of a sustainable community-driven project that could bring much needed education and health care services to their communities.

Since the inception of the Alliance in 2002, HHA has evolved into an annual health intervention project that began in 2004. In July, 2004, 10 medical students and 2 physicians spent the month of July working to improve the reproductive health literacy of these communities while also beginning clinical services. In July of 2005, 2006, and 2007 students and physicians returned to these same communities to offer more educational workshops and preventative clinical services.  The planned trip for July 2008 will be the fifth year of intervention.

Cervical Cancer Prevention in Rural Honduras

Cervical cancer causes significant morbidity and mortality and does so disproportionately in the developing world. This remains true despite the fact that effective prevention and treatment strategies exist. Within this context, HHA explores the burden of suffering exacted by cervical cancer on rural Honduran women. HHA also examines what prevention strategies are available and analyzes which are most appropriate in the setting. HHA concludes by assessing current cervical cancer prevention guidelines, how they are or are not being implemented, and make recommendations for improvement.

HHA comes at this issue not only from a didactic perspective but also with experience derived from participatory field research. Due to its own research and development of a community-driven women's health education and prevention program in southern Honduras over the past serveral years, HHA is interested in how the impact of this disease can be reduced, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Work in the developing world comes with its own set of hurdles, mainly due to the lack of resources. Significant among these hurdles is the frequent dearth of research and good quality data on basic health indicators.

Click here to download the PDF document, "Cervical Cancer Prevention Strategies"

Future Projects

As our relationship with and understanding of the communities evolve, we are faced with new challenges and new tasks.  In July 2007, we began a pilot program to evaluate and treat hypertension in women in our clinic population.  In the spring of 2008, we conducted focus groups to evaluate the desire for HIV testing at our clinic.  Students and community members have proposed several other possibilities for other future projects.