Journal Article

A Community-Partnered Approach to Developing Church-Based Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities Among African-Americans and Latinos

Derose, Kathryn P., Williams, Malcolm V., Flórez, Karen R., Mata, Michael A., Oden, Clyde W., Hawes-Dawson, Jennifer, Wong, Eunice C., Branch, Cheryl A.

2019

Overview

Faith and public health partnerships offer promise to addressing health disparities, but examples that incorporate African-Americans and Latino congregations are lacking. Here we present results from developing a multi-ethnic, multidenominational faith and public health partnership to address health disparities through community-based participatory research (CBPR), focusing on several key issues: (1) the multi-layered governance structure and activities to establish the partnership and identify initial health priority (obesity), (2) characteristics of the congregations recruited to partnership (n = 66), and (3) the lessons learned from participating congregations’ past work on obesity that informed the development of a multi-level, multicomponent, church-based intervention. Having diverse staff with deep ties in the faith community, both among researchers and the primary community partner agency, was key to recruiting African-American and Latino churches. Involvement by local health department and community health clinic personnel provided technical expertise and support regarding health data and clinical resources. Selecting a health issue—obesity—that affected all subgroups (e.g., African-Americans and Latinos, women and men, children and adults) garnered high enthusiasm among partners, as did including some innovative aspects such as a text/e-mail messaging component and a community mapping exercise to identify issues for advocacy. Funding that allowed for an extensive community engagement and planning process was key to successfully implementing a CBPR approach. Building partnerships through which multiple CBPR initiatives can be done offers efficiencies and sustainability in terms of programmatic activities, though long-term infrastructure grants, institutional support, and non-research funding from local foundations and health systems are likely needed.

• Publisher: Springer Science + Business Media,Springer International Publishing,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Adults / Advocacy / African Americans / Black churches / Black or African American / Churches / Clinical governance / Community / Community based action research / Community health / Community involvement / Community participation / Community planning / Community research / Community-Based Participatory Research / Community-Institutional Relations / Cultural differences / Epidemiology / Ethnic factors / Ethnicity / Faith-Based Organizations - organization & administration / Funding / Governance / Grants / Health care policy / Health disparities / Health education / Health Education - organization & administration / Health Fairs / Health information / Health Promotion / Health services / Health Status Disparities / Healthcare Disparities - ethnology / Hispanic Americans / Hispanic or Latino / Humans / Infrastructure / Institutional aspects / Internet / Intervention / Latin American cultural groups / Los Angeles / Mapping / Mass Screening / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Minority & ethnic groups / Mortality / Mothers / Multilayers / Nonprofit organizations / Obesity / Obesity - ethnology / Participatory research / Partnerships / Population / Public Health / Quality of Life Research / Race / Recruitment / Religion / Religious congregations / Religious organizations / Research funding / Secondary schools / Social Inequality / Social Structure / Stakeholder Participation / Subgroups