The African-American Health Improvement Partnership

描述（由申请人提供）：这个为期三年的项目结合了规划活动和试点干预研究，以开发可复制的干预措施，以改善北卡罗来纳州达勒姆工作和中产阶级非洲裔美国人的健康。 根据已发表的（尽管有限）关于当地健康差异的数据，以及研究小组先前的经验，该项目可能会侧重于非洲裔美国人2型糖尿病和高血压的管理。 这些干预措施可能还将强调在社会各阶层内部和之间发展社会支助，作为实现可持续改善健康的手段。 然而，根据基于社区的参与性研究（CBPR）的原则，将通过CBPR规划过程确定疾病重点以及干预设计和战略。 该项目分为五个阶段：1）为社区咨询委员会（CAB）制定操作规范和议程，以促进CAB和项目团队做出知情、有效和基于共识的协作决策; 2）评估社区需求、资产、卫生优先事项和现有卫生举措;并制定一项计划，实施和测试一项干预措施，以创造非洲裔美国成年人健康的可持续变化，在社区一级和卫生系统影响他们的健康的因素; 3）实施试点干预研究; 4）传播研究结果的达勒姆社区，并制定和提交一个完整的干预研究计划; 5）传播研究结果，以更大的卫生服务社区。 相关性：文献记录了白色美国人和非洲裔美国人的健康状况和医疗保健之间的显著差异。 拟议的项目将有助于我们了解差距以及如何以两种方式减少差距。 首先，尽管中产阶级内部存在种族差异，但大多数干预措施和CBPR项目都集中在工人阶级的非裔美国人身上。 第二，该项目将制定干预措施，解决医疗保健系统内外的社会因素，这些因素似乎有助于非洲裔美国人的健康劣势。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This three-year project combines planning activities and pilot intervention research to develop replicable interventions to improve the health of working and middle class African-Americans in Durham, North Carolina. Based on published (albeit limited) data on local health disparities, and on the prior experiences of the research team, the project will likely focus on the management of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in African American adults. It is likely that the interventions will also emphasize developing social supports within and across social class lines as a vehicle to achieve sustainable improvements in health. In keeping with the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), however, the determination of disease focus, as well as the intervention design and strategy, will be made through a CBPR planning process. The project has five stages: 1) Establish operating norms and an agenda for the Community Advisory Board (CAB) that will promote informed, effective, and collaborative consensus-based decision-making by the CAB and project team; 2) Assess community needs, assets, health priorities, and existing health initiatives; and develop a plan to implement and test an intervention to create sustainable changes in the health of African-American adults, and in community-level and health system factors impacting their health; 3) Implement pilot intervention research; 4) Disseminate findings to the Durham community, and develop and submit a full intervention research plan; 5) Disseminate findings to the larger health services community. Relevance: The literature documents significant disparities between the health status and health care of White Americans and African-Americans. The proposed project will contribute to our knowledge of disparities and how to reduce them in two ways. First, despite the fact that racial disparities exist within the middle class, most interventions and most CBPR projects have focused on working-class African-Americans. Second, the project will develop interventions that address social factors within and outside the health care system that appear to contribute to health disadvantages in the African American population.