African americans in health science research: A university, community and faith-based model

Eliminating health disparities that impact African Americans is a major public health priority. Churches reach over 50% of African Americans each week and may be ideal partners to increase reach and impact of health research in their communities, but effective models for engaging them with researchers are lacking. We developed a network coordinating entity (“Heartland Health Network”) to create linkages between health researchers, faith-based organizations, and community-based health organizations with the aim of increasing their capacity to collaboratively engage in health science research. With funding from NIMHD, we have assisted our partners by: 1) enhancing communication and partner relationships through strategic introductions and annual meetings, 2) providing mini-grants to increase faith-based partners' technology, organizational, and grant-writing capacity, 3) providing a workshop series of topics (e.g., program development, evaluation, grant-writing) to enhance faith/health partners' organizational capacity, 4) providing a ‘Lunch and Learn' workshop series to stimulate health researchers' interest in and capacity for community-engaged research, 5) funding partnership development grants that lead to grant submissions, and 6) providing technical assistance to all partners. After 2.5 years, we have engaged 60+ organizations, hosted 163 individuals at our annual meetings, engendered numerous partnerships, received mini-grant applications from 48 organizations, funded 26 mini-grants, and contributed to 33 extramural grants submissions and 6 funded proposals. This partnership model with a central network coordinating entity appears to viably and effectively increase health research partnerships between academic researchers and faith/community organizations. We will discuss lessons learned on successful (and not so successful) strategies involved in these efforts.