Researchers from the Cleveland State University's Center for Health Equity have partnered with residents and organizations from Cleveland's Central neighborhood (a predominately African-American community, one of the poorest and most significantly disadvantaged Statistical Planning Area in Cleveland) to determine if Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodologies will yield greater success in health interventions compared to those existing community health interventions that were initiated using traditional methodologies. The long term goal is to identify those health interventions that have the greatest chance of reducing health disparities in this and other predominately low income, minority communities. Over a three year planning period, grant funds will be used to: ? Aim 1: Develop a partnership between the Central neighborhood's Building Healthy Communities initiative and Cleveland State University wherein both citizens and scientists understand CBPR.
Aim 2 : Identify an intervention research project through which to test the CBPR methodology and partnership processes.
Aim 3 : Implement 1-2 pilot health intervention projects within the Central neighborhood using CBPR. ? ? The first year of the grant will focus on building an infrastructure of trust and understanding between the community and researchers, including activities such as joint training on CPBR, community-informed needs assessments, and development of procedures that will guide the intervention. Years two and three of the grant will focus on a specific intervention(s) identified by the community in which the researchers will help validate and evaluate. By the end of the grant period, it is expected that the partnership will have identified and tested an intervention that will become the basis for a full-scale intervention in the community. One of the biggest gaps this planning grant will fill is the opportunity to bring CPBR methodologies into Cleveland, testing a methodology that has the potential to reduce the significant health disparities that exist in the city's poorest neighborhoods. It is expected that true citizen participation and guidance coupled with university research expertise will result in a variety of measurable intervention programs that are proven to reduce health disparities in one of our nation's poorest cities. ? ?
