Specific Aim 4: To understand what community and university structures, processes, policies, and activities are required to conduct CBPR research with Native American communities that successfully addresses Native American health disparities. Ms. Sara Young, an enrolled member of the Crow tribe of Montana, is the director of the Community Engagement Core. Ms. Young wears multiple hats at MSU, enabling her to support CBPR, Native American health, and Native American health education in many ways. She serves as outreach director to the two largest science grants on campus to support research capacity at the state's tribal colleges and as the outreach coordinator for the American Indian Research Opportunities Program's Bridges to the Baccalaureate program, which is funded by NIH. Ms. Alma Knows His Gun McCormick, Project Coordinator for the CBPR project Messengers for Health, will assist in the Community Engagement Core. She is.a classic example of a boundary spanner, which as been called the """"""""gatekeeper of innovation in partnerships."""""""" Boundary spanners are able to effectively work across organizations or partnerships, providing partners information that helps them to understand each other and work effectively together. A letter of support for the Consortium from Ms. McCormick is included in Section L. It is generally agreed that research is an important component in eliminating health disparities, however many groups who experience health disparities have had negative experiences with researchers and research processes. Understandably, these experiences have led many communities to distrust researchers and the research process. The Community Engagement/Outreach Core has as its primary mission to build trust and facilitate Native American communities members'power and capacity to provide leadership in addressing their health concerns through engagement in a CBPR process. This Core will work toward public confidence in the Consortium as a community-based research resource. The Consortium will not only be an effective portal for Montana's Native American population to connect with skilled researchers, but an effective broker to ensure that partners implement projects that fully satisfy the needs and interests of all parties. It is well established that CBPR effectively engages underserved populations in advancing personal, social and institutional change for improved quality of life. As Minkler et al. put it, """"""""[participatory research has a rich and honored tradition in community development, especially in developing countries, where it has enabled social change and community development projects among populations who were suspicious of the motives of Western researchers.""""""""11 The state of Montana currently has no infrastructure that provides community members with a method for partnering with researchers to address community-identified public health concerns nor is there any training for community members who are interested in engaging in this process. As Minkler and colleagues11 note, important """"""""groundwork"""""""" for successful CBPR can be laid by """"""""supporting the community building and organizational capacity development that is a critical precursor to and first step in such partnership approaches.""""""""11 We have and will use information and expertise from two primary organizations for developing this core - the Loka Institute and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health. The Loka Institute provides processes, protocols and best practices for democratic decision-making in organizations and communities and promotes best practices for participatory research. Loka founded a North American """"""""Community Research Network"""""""" (CRN) that hosts annual conferences, a web-based discussion network, a web site, a community research funding database. CRN also publishes a quarterly journal, and """"""""how-to"""""""" materials and case studies for successful partnerships. The Loka Institute follows the example of science shops"""""""", which were created in Europe as """"""""mediators between citizen groups...and research institutions."""""""" Science shops """"""""provide independent, participatory research support in response to concerns experienced by [the public].""""""""86 Science shops seek to provide communities with knowledge and skills through research and education, promote and support public access to, and influence on, science and technology, create equitable and supportive partnerships, enhance understanding among policymakers, and enhance the transferable skills and knowledge of students, community representatives and researchers. The Loka Institute has a wide variety of tools directly applicable to the Consortium's needs. The second organization we draw from is Campus-Community Partnerships in Health (CCPH), a nonprofit organization that """"""""promotes health through partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions."""""""" Founded in 1996, they now include a network of over 1,200 communities and campuses across North America. Network members collaborate to promote health through service-learning, community-based participatory research, broad-based coalitions and other partnership strategies. Combining the knowledge and experience of the Loka Institute and CCPH with the experience and expertise of the Leadership Team provides a strong institutional base upon which to build the Community Engagement/Outreach Core. There are seven steps to the Community Engagement/Outreach Core. These steps are shown below and described in detail in the rest of this section.
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