In October 2005, the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH awarded $1.3 million to Cleveland State University's Center for Health Equity. The purpose of the project (ACT: advancing Central's health together) is to work with residents of the Central community to understand their concerns about obesity and its consequences, and to use Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodologies to develop effective obesity-related health interventions. CBPR actively engages the community in the processes that shape research and intervention strategies, as well as in the conduct of research itself. This project will allow the community to help structure the research, as well actively participate in the process and help design the dissemination of the findings. The overall goal of the three-year planning grant is to determine if using CBPR methodologies will have better success in defining and introducing effective health inventions over the long term compared to traditional methodologies.

Background

The mission of the Center for Health Equity is to provide leadership to advance the understanding of health disparities and their resolution through interdisciplinary research, community partnerships, and multidisciplinary education; and to develop and implement strategies that promote health and well-being for residents of Greater Cleveland.

In recent years, Cleveland has been consistently ranked among the nation’s poorest cities and research has shown that people from minority and disadvantaged groups experience health disparities in terms of poorer access to care, higher incidences of disease, and higher mortality rates. The Building Healthy Communities (BHC) program, a grassroots initiative where St. Vincent Charity Hospital was one of the lead partners, found that hypertension, cancer, and asthma were all major health concerns of the Central community and research has shown that obesity/overweight is a common link to these health conditions. Overweight and obesity are major contributors to a number of other medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and are associated with higher death rates.

Activities

During this three-year planning grant, we will help the Central community understand CBPR methods, work with residents to define a focus within the context of obesity and its consequences, develop obesity-related health interventions based on best-practices, and implement two pilot projects to evaluate these intervents. To do this, we will meet with residents and discuss the project and CBPR methods through a series of focus groups, town hall meetings, and individual meetings with community residents and leaders.

The following are the four aims of the project:

• Develop Central neighborhood partnerships
• Find a community focus within the context of obesity and its consequences
• Develop obesity-related health interventions
• Implement pilot projects

Partners: