Talents, Tears, Stories of Our Identities, and Community Building: Toward Community-Based Ecosystems of Latine Health Driven by Promotores

This essay describes a process for integrating US Latine communities as drivers of a grassroots vision for healthy Latine communities and health equity planning that addresses racial injustices. Transforming structural conditions to promote Latine community health happens alongside creating conditions for community-level self-determination to foster community-based ecosystems of health. Integrating a life course perspective, we describe a vision for community-based ecosystems of Latine health that is rooted in forging connections and cultivating community; building community power to address structural drivers of health; leveraging the expertise and assets of promotores to reach, engage, and mobilize communities; scaling solutions through policy, system, and environment changes; and grounding research processes in community-driven priorities. Such processes must affirm the expertise of promotores and Latine communities and recognize the interconnectedness of communities and systems (e.g., food, housing, living wages) to nurture health at local levels. Research can advance the science and evidence-based models that support community-based ecosystems of Latine health.