Engaging Partners in Caring Communities (EPICC): Building capacity to implement health promotion programs in African American churches

史诗项目总结

EPICC PROJECT SUMMARY Engaging Partners in Caring Communities (EPICC) is designed to reduce health disparities associated with chronic health conditions such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, by supporting delivery of evidence-based health promotion programs in churches serving African American communities. This academic-community partnership will support 30 churches in developing implementation teams of 4-5 members to participate in tis project. They will have access to the EPICC App and website will be designed with community input to guide implementation teams in selecting evidence-based programs (EBPs) approved by federal agencies. They will then complete the web-based EPICC Survey developed for this project to assess their organization’s capacity to implement the program they select. This will be used to identify facilitators and challenges they may face as they offer the EBP in their congregation. The research team will use a recently developed analytic tool to guide them in offering technical assistance based on the results of that survey. This mixed methods step-wedge cluster randomized trial will provide information about the approach to disseminating information about EBPs to faith-based communities, assessing strengths and challenges, and delivering technical assistance to build church capacity to promote health. It is also designed to bring implementation teams from participating churches together in a learning collaborative to identify and address social determinants of health that constitute additional impediments to health equity. will also bring implementation teams together to identify and address social determinants of health that are relevant to their shared goals. Successful completion of this project will potentially transform approaches to community engagement and empowerment to improve health equity. The Partners who will be engaged in this project include four academic faculty from two historically Black colleges/universities (HBCUs) who will offer graduate and undergraduate students opportunities to participate in community-engaged research, learn about implementation science, observe and reflect on development and deployment of several technological products designed with community input.