We are tired, yet satisfied, here in the Dominican Republic. Our team is hard at work setting up PhotoVoice assignments, captioning photos, gathering data on community opinions and priorities, overcoming the technical difficulties inherent with $20 digital cameras, and building rapport with community members. Tomorrow brings our most important venture: a day of large and small focus groups with the participants, in order to flesh out what the community members beliefs and behaviors are, with respect to the all-to-prevalent diseases: hypertension (aqui se dicen “la presion,” literally, pressure) and diabetes (se dicen “el azucar,” literally, sugar.). HHI has been working continually toward the second tenet of its mission statement, building capacity for community health, by initiating efforts to prevent the chronic diseases with which its thrice-yearly medical clinics must deal with so frequently. Tracy Kaye, HHI’s new public health director, is building a healthy lifestyle initiative to address this, and with the help of our research, the intervention will become aligned with the goals, opinions, and needs of the communities with whom HHI has partnered. Already, in the captioning process, some critical information has surfaced. Understandably, we are bubbling with excitement to dive headlong into the wealth of information that these community members hold. There is more to come from the Public Health Team; I will try not to build up the suspense too much. Best wishes from the DR!

Erik