A Community Collaborative Effort to Reduce the Burden of Heart Disease in A Safe*

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of this effort is to enhance a partnership of community-based organizations, safety net providers, and mission-based academic partners to develop a community and culturally tailored use of health information technology (HIT) to reduce the burden of heart disease in South Los Angeles. The partnership, the South Los Angeles Healthcare Leadership Roundtable, is a group committed and motivated to improve the overall health of South Los Angeles residents through collaboration, strategic planning, shared resources, accountability, and transparency. The proposed effort will be lead by two members of the Roundtable, a community principal investigator, the executive director of Community Health Councils, Inc. (CHC), which served as the incubator for the Roundtable and an academic principal investigator from Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Both have substantial input in the development of the specific aims and grant application ensuring that the Roundtable's deliberations are incorporated into it. The Roundtable, which includes safety net healthcare providers in addition to community and academic representation, has operated using the community partner's "Model for Social Change" approach. Specific Aim 1: To use a 'Model for Social Change' consistent with Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) principles to design a novel healthcare intervention to reduce heart disease disparities in South Los Angeles that: a) builds upon existing evidence-based guidelines, b) incorporates the use of health information technology, and c) is collaboratively tailored to the unique cultural and healthcare resource needs of the community through community engagement. Specific Aim 2: To collaboratively pilot test the feasibility of implementation, and the potential impact of usig this community-tailored intervention to address the gap between recommended heart disease guidelines and improved health outcomes in communities suffering from health disparities. RELEVANCE: Our findings from the needs assessment and pilot intervention will support a greater understanding of the burden of heart disease in this community. Ultimately, we hope that this effort will serve as a paradigm for future community-academic partnerships in other settings aimed at bridging translational gaps between clinical science and improved public health outcomes.