Introduction

The Action-Oriented Community Diagnosis is a process in which a team of students works with a designated community to identify its strengths, weaknesses, overall needs, and future directions for promoting health and well-being (Eng and Blanchard, 1991). Gathering this information entails traveling to the community to observe the physical surroundings, as well as the social environment. A preceptor assists the team in their initial introduction into the community and further mentors them throughout the process.

Interviews and focus group discussions are conducted with key informants, identified as individuals who provide services in the local area (also known as service providers) or those who reside within the community (referred to as community members). In either case, the key informants, by definition, provide deep insight into the life of a community (Eng and Blanchard, 1991). Throughout the community diagnosis process, community members are highly involved, with the aim that "wider commitment from the community to collaborate further in shaping and implementing a solution" will develop (Eng and Blanchard, 1991).

The results of a community diagnosis are presented through a community-wide forum and an official document. The purpose of the forum is to present the findings of the interviews and focus groups to the community and to engage participants in a discussion about these findings and possible action steps for change. Similarly, the intent of the document is to present the findings of the diagnosis and to serve as a resource for the community members and service providers alike.

This document records the findings of a community diagnosis based in Fuquay-Varina, located in Wake County, North Carolina. This town has changed in recent years, and the increasing Latino population has been identified by most community members as a significant sub-community within the larger community. This community diagnosis focuses specifically upon the Latino population of Fuquay-Varina, a group consisting of year-round residents and migrant farm workers.

The heart of this document is the discussion of particular areas of concern as noted by community members and service providers. The issues that emerged most frequently in interviews and focus groups are presented first, while secondary issues that interviewees considered important but mentioned less frequently are described afterward. Each issue has a specific heading, denoting a general topic area. For the primary issues (that were presented and discussed in the forum), a theme is presented under the heading.

Secondary data, in the form of statistics and other general information, are compiled and presented for reference purposes in order to inform the reader of the changing demographics and overall composition of Fuquay-Varina in particular and of Wake County in general. Primary data, in the form of interviews and focus groups, yields the perspective of outsiders, a group consisting of community members who are non-Latino or are service providers, and insiders, the Latino community members, including year-round residents and migrant farm workers. A Venn diagram has been designed to depict the relationships and crossover between insiders and outsiders (See Appendix B). As the reader can determine from this diagram, some of the outsiders provided information that is very similar to the insider perspective, as signified by the overlapping areas. This similarity is borne of close interactions with the Latino community; by working with insiders and perceiving their concerns, some outsiders have been able to understand the insider viewpoint and consider the challenges they face more clearly.

Acknowledgments

History of Fuquay-Varina