Claudia Hartz, Lead Community Health Worker at West Hawaii Community Health Center, has been part of outreach for over seven years. Claudia received her B.A in Transborder Chicano/Latino studies from Arizona State University. Her focus in college was Community Health and Development. During college, she worked as a research assistant for the Department of Transformative studies under the supervision of Dr. Rudy Guevarra. The project gave Claudia the knowledge and data related to Hispanic/Latino communities on the islands of Hawai’i. Claudia’s responsibilities were to interview Hispanics living on Hawai‘i Island.
Claudia is currently pursuing her Master’s in Social Work through the University of Hawai’i Manoa campus. She is bilingual and fluent in both Spanish and English. Before coming to Hawai’i, she worked for Phoenix Children’s Hospital in Arizona for over 17 years as a Spanish medical interpreter. She has completed certifications in interpretation and translation through the Agnese Haury Institute of Interpretation at the University of Arizona. She also took part in a national program known as the “Medical Interpreter Project” where over 50 interpreters across the nation were trained to provide “train the trainer” to other medical interpreters. In the fall of 2015, she completed “Bridging the Gap” through the Office of Language Access Hawaii State Department of Health and is part of their roster offering Language services on the West Side of Hawai’i.
Claudia’s responsibilities as a Community Health Worker is reaching to the underserved community and helping to identify barriers in their health care. She is involved with providing health education to the migrant farmworker community and teaching perinatal health education classes through a “Healthy Mamas” program at West Hawaii Community Health Center.
