The Salud y Vida con Amigos project will fund the collaborative planning, development, and delivery of a bilingual (Spanish/English) health literacy education initiative in the remote northern region of Do?a Ana County, New Mexico (DAC), a US-Mexico border county. The region, comprised of the largely agricultural communities of Hatch, Salem, Garfield, Rincon, and Radium Springs, has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The predominantly Hispanic farmworker population experiences high rates of poverty, is largely Spanish-speaking only, and has limited access to reliable health information.Salud y Vida con Amigos will provide health-literate COVID-19 information and education to residents and train community health workers (CHWs) and area health professionals in best- practice, health-literate communication techniques. The Dona Ana County Health and Human Services Department will lead development of a health literacy network to identify challenges and create a sustained collaboration to address health literacy. Curricula, a texting app, wifi hotspots, an interactive website, and other tools will be developed to increase health literacy and to give these communities the information and skills they need to stop COVID-19. A toolkit will be developed for replication in other rural and/or US-Mexico border communities.Project goals are:1.Improve residents? ability to access, understand, and act on health information, focusing on COVID-19 prevention, vaccination, and improved adherence to public health practices. 2.Increase the capacity of community health workers, community leaders, and clinical staff to provide accurate, culturally responsive, health-literate information so community members can find, understand, and act on COVID-19 health information.3.Create a sustainable collaborative network to improve personal and organizational health literacy and conduct health literacy activities in southern New Mexico.4.Collaboratively develop a plan
to sustain adherence to public health recommendations, both for COVID-19 and other health issues, including future public health emergencies.