The Illinois Prevention Research Center (IPRC) of the University of Illinois at Chicago has a primary mission to reduce health disparities through behavior change approaches by conducting health promotion and disease prevention research across the lifespan, translating research into practice and measuring the real-world effectiveness, dissemination and translation of health promotion and disease prevention programs and initiatives. The IPRC's activities concentrate in seven areas and aim specifically to: (1) Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with community and academic partners, including a Community Committee and CommunityAdvisory Board, university faculty, students, public health agencies and non-traditional partners to address data driven health disparities; (2) Engage the community and establish a research agenda to conduct participatory research on modification of health behaviors associated with increased risk for major chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes; (3) Conduct community training, graduate student mentoring and continuing education opportunities in evidence-based public health research and practice; (4) Implement and evaluate innovative programs and interventions and communicate findings to community and professional audiences; (5) Develop a cadre of well trained researchers, practitioners, students and community members to enhance the capacity of communities, public health agencies and organizations, and prevention centers to conduct evidence-based participatory research; (6) Disseminate and translate intervention protocols and research findings to the public health community, local, state, and national policy makers, community-partners, and the research community; and (7) Identify contextual factors that may influence implementation of activities and achievement of outcomes. IPRC activities are guided by the CDC's Logic Model for the Prevention Research Center Program and informed by state-of-the-art conceptual frameworks for community-participatory research, development of intervention strategies at the individual, organizational, and environmental level, and diffusion of innovations. The evaluation of the IPRC focuses on our success in achieving the goals related to each of the seven overall aims.
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