Often promotoras are residents and identified leaders in their community who work for community-based health promotion projects or as part of a research group.
It was during those two decades that the United States federal government initiated a support campaign for the outreach to rural, marginalized, and hard-to-reach communities with the intention of improving access to care.
[citation needed] The essence of using promotoras as means of health education dissemination to prevent disease has been used in countries in the continent of Africa for much longer than in the Americas.
Third world countries with high mortality rates of preventable and infectious diseases adopted this model to outreach communities that had no access to decent health care.
[1] Although promotoras are not professional health workers, they are often tasked with projects of similar stature and importance because areas where they work are often significantly underserved (e.g., case management, referral source).
Studies have shown small and large scale benefits in preventive care for Latinos when promotoras are used as an agent of change.
[12] Promotoras have also shown to be promising results among farm workers with diabetes by aiding in the control of glycemic levels and increase social support.
A pilot program using promotoras created a comic book to teach children about the risks of chronic pesticide exposure at the same time that they conducted family visits.