Latino Center For Prevention & Action In Health & Welfare

Latino Health Access partners with communities to bring health, equity, and sustainable change through education, services, consciousness-raising, and civic participation.

Founded in 1993, Latino Health Access was the first Community-Based Organization in Orange County devoted to addressing health and its social determinants. Since inception, LHA has placed the community at the center of its strategy creation and delivery of services. LHA pioneered the Community Health Worker (CHW) model in Orange County and has since trained many organizations locally, nationally, and internationally on structuring CHW programs, community health, social determinants, disease prevention and management, and more.

The organization initially focused on diabetes self-management as a response to the health disparities and priorities within the Latinx community in the county. In 1995, LHA partnered with the Orange County Health Care Agency to conduct the first-ever health needs assessment of the Latinx community, with a focus on the 92701 zip code, the poorest zip code in OC. Using the assessment results, LHA launched the first-place-based intervention focusing on the 92701 area. Responding to the community’s desires and needs, LHA has since expanded programming in the areas of domestic violence, depression, child passenger safety, older adults and youth.

Understanding the importance of long-term, policy and systemic solutions, LHA has focuses on community-led advocacy in the areas of built environment, open space, food and nutrition, housing, active transportation, and access to health care. LHA has been pivotal in the fight against obesity, creating the first park/community center in the 92701 zip code. In 2020, LHA led the COVID response for the Latinx community in OC. Today, the organization maintains a strong, ongoing focus on relevant service delivery and advocacy in partnership with our community. LHA provided 175,325 services to 9,671 unduplicated individuals in 2025: 68.76% women, 91.11% Latino/a, 68.35% Spanish speakers, 72.66% immigrants, and 90.11% with annual household incomes below poverty level.

The University of California in Irvine Health reports that In OC, Latino/as experience the highest prevalence of diabetes (18.3%) Latina women in OC experience psychological distress at 20% higher rates than non-Latina white women 20.7% of mental health hospitalizations attributed to Latina women (Fernandez, 2015). LHA partners with communities facing systemic barriers that exacerbate these health outcomes including limited healthcare access due to costs, eligibility, language, navigational challenges, and fear tied to documentation status. Poverty, food insecurity, long work hours, linguistic isolation, and limited health literacy exacerbate these inequities, delaying chronic disease management and mental health care. Though LHA opens its doors to all ages and genders, LHA's services have benefitted a majority of women, about 72.5%.

Latino Health Access is headquartered in Santa Ana, California, and provides direct services throughout the entire Orange County region.

Latino Health Access (LHA) is a very special place and organization. It opens doors and embraces children, youth, and adults, and invites them to build community. Our work is guided by a heart that feels love for our community and expresses that love through acts of solidarity. It is a heart filled with compassion but not pity; it suffers with the pain of others and the lack of justice and opportunities for our families, but it does not despair. It is a heart that compels us to share our time, resources, and stories in solidarity so we all can become stronger. Obviously, our work is also guided by the brain and the main experiences, lessons, and skills that exist among team members and outside LHA. Still, we have seen how difficult is to connect and mobilize our neighbors, to invite them to be a part of improving their communities when the call comes only from the brain.

At LHA we make every attempt to recruit loving hearts: the woman who came to manage her diabetes but by the second class was offering support to others; the man who is a recovered addict and approaches individuals battling addictions with a profound sense of love and respect; the woman who came to us to figure out how to stop violence at home and now offers her home to other women in similar circumstances; the women who cook beans and tortillas to provide a snack so our kids can eat during our very underfunded children's programs. We recruit hearts that allow people to be creative, find solutions, find each other, work together, and overcome barriers and conflicts during difficult times.

Latino Health Access (LHA) remains dedicated to serving communities to decrease gaps in health access and accompany individuals through its dedicated and nationally recognized Community Health Worker/ Promotor model. With LHA's pulse on the community, LHA continues to respond to the most urgent needs of marginalized communities in real-time.