Empowerment: healthcare professionals' and community members' contributions.

Healthcare disparities for minorities are well reported and related to individual, provider and system characteristics. This paper reports a meta-synthesis of "empowerment with Hispanic and Latino people. This meta-synthesis utilized Noblit and Hare's meta-ethnographic method (1988) examining seven qualitative studies to discover strategies of empowerment by healthcare professionals for Hispanic/Latino people. Three themes were disclosed: strategies for empowerment, sharing power, and growth of the Hispanic/Latino culture in the United States. These themes expand existing conceptualizations of ways in which health care professionals and community members can work in a participatory research approach to improve healthcare outcomes as well as empowering the community.