For over 15 years, the Arizona Prevention Research Center (AzPRC) has provided an umbrella for academic- community collaborative research, training and capacity building efforts to reduce health disparities in chronic disease in the state The AzPRC foundation of practice-based research on chronic disease prevention and control, with a focus on Latinos living in Arizona border communities, well positions us to substantively contribute to CDC's winnable battle of nutrition, physical activity and obesity. In doing so, AzPRC goals and objectives will carry forward existing efforts of AzPRC personnel and partners to further the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's mission to support people and communities in preventing chronic disease and promoting health for all, specifically through our efforts to: 1) integrating evidence-based strategies across health systems; 2) working with public health systems to apply and evaluate policy, systems & environmental change (PSE) efforts designed to create healthy places for people to work, learn and play; and 3) improving community-clinical linkages to ensure access to, and quality of, culturally relevant prevention and promotion efforts. Over the next five years the AzPRC will work with the Arizona Department of Health Services, County Health Departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers and other community organizations to improve the health and wellbeing of communities on the Arizona-Sonora Border and statewide. The AzPRC will achieve this goal through the integrated impact of efforts in infrastructure, community engagement, partnering and technical assistance; communication and dissemination, training, and evaluation. The AzPRC, using state of the art and efficient methodologies, will also execute a rigorous practice- based Public Health research project that will identify evidence-based guidelines for Community Health Worker (CHW) practices to address chronic disease and interrelated mental health needs, and translate these findings into an implemented and evaluated CHW-delivered preventive program model linking primary care settings dedicated to reaching the under-served with community services of county health departments. In the latter stages of this research, guiding by our prior successful statewide public health system-based efforts and being responsive to evolving reimbursement mechanism of CHWs promoted by the Affordable Care Act and other policy efforts, the sustainability and scalable of this program throughout the State will be focal.
Over the next five years the Arizona Prevention Research Center will integrate evidence-based strategies across health systems, working with those systems to apply and evaluate policy, systems and environmental change efforts designed to create healthy places, and maximize community-clinical linkages to prevent chronic disease and promote health. Our center and its applied public health research project will, at its core, address the CDC winnable battle of nutrition, physical activity and obesity, while also contributing to meeting objectives of the National Prevention Strategy and addressing multiple priority domains of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Our core research, using innovative and efficient methodologies in real world public health settings, will lead to scalable and sustainable Community Health Worker strategies and programs to reduce chronic disease and improve well-being.
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