The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1307226
This article is part of the Research Topic Community Health Workers: Describing the Breadth of Interventions and Contexts Across the World View all 18 articles
Title of the Community Case Study: Nurse-community health mediator pairs: a promising model for promoting the health of populations in remote areas of the French Amazon
Provisionally accepted- 1 Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble, La Tronche, Rhône-Alpes, France
- 2 UMR5525 Techniques de l'Ingénierie Médicale et de la Complexité Informatique, Mathématiques et Applications, Grenoble (TIMC-IMAG), La Tronche, Rhône-Alpes, France
- 3 French Red Cross, Cayenne, French Guiana
- 4 Prevention and care centers, Cayenne Center Hospital, Cayenne, France, French Guiana
- 5 Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Avicenne Hospital, Bobigny, France, Bobigny, France
- 6 INSERM U1137 Infection, Antimicrobiens, Modélisation, Evolution, Paris, Île-de-France, France
- 7 7. Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Cayenne Center hospital, Cayenne, French Guiana, France, Cayenne, French Guiana
- 8 University of French Guiana, Cayenne, French Guiana, France, Cayenne, French Guiana
Multicultural Amazonian populations in remote areas of French Guiana face challenges in accessing healthcare and preventive measures. They are geographically and administratively isolated. Health mediation serves as an interface between vulnerable people and the professionals involved in their care. This approach aims to improve the health of Amazonian populations by addressing their unique challenges, including social and health vulnerabilities, as well as language and cultural barriers. A Mobile Public Health Team (MPHT) relying on health mediation was created in 2019. Comprising six nurse-community-health mediator pairs who receive ongoing specialized training, along with a coordination team of one physician and two public health nurses, the MPHT is connected to the 17 Prevention and Care Remote Centres across the territory. This article presents a community case study of the MPHT of the remote areas in French Guiana and the description of the activities of this health promotion programme in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The MPHT carried out health promotion initiatives, often in collaboration with partners, focusing on health priorities of the Amazonian territories. The interventions were co-designed with community leaders and local populations to ensure relevance and effectiveness. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the MPHT reached over 6,000 individuals in addition to more than 3,000 participants in a water, hygiene and sanitation education programme. The team performed 83 health promotion interventions on eight different topics, including 28 in the general population (922 people reached) and 55 in schools (n = 930). The MPHT produced 20 communication tools, which were adapted and translated into eight languages. The team also participated in managing six simultaneous epidemic events, including malaria, diphtheria, and tuberculosis.This study highlights how the combined expertise of healthcare professionals and the mediation skills of community health workers effectively addressed the specific health needs of the multicultural Amazonian populations. This model for addressing social and health inequities should encourage institutional recognition of the community health mediator model.
Keywords: Health mediation, Health Promotion, Amazonian communities, Health Education, French Guiana, community-health mediator
Received: 04 Oct 2023; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Melanie, Oberlis, Bérengère, Charlène, Estelle, Celine, Lionel, Cyril, Cécile, Bastien, Vignier, Loïc and Brice. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Gaillet Melanie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble, La Tronche, 38700, Rhône-Alpes, France
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.