Building infrastructure for community-linked health research: Focusing on the food environment in North Carolina

Disparities in access to healthy foods are increasingly documented in US populations through public health research. Such disparities parallel disparities in chronic disease morbidity and mortality, the focus of much medical research. The Forsyth Healthy Living Collaborative (FHLC) is designed to bring together community and medical-school based researchers to address locally-recognized public health concerns and create community-linked research infrastructure. This roundtable presentation will highlight successful strategies centered on the local food environment undertaken by the FHLC. Guided by a diverse Food Environment Committee, a series of events and research projects have been conducted. Events included a community forum focused on healthy eating for children that brought together community members and researchers to consider national and regional approaches to disparities; and workshops on research methods that could engage community members in producing data with which to reveal patterns of existing disparities. Workshops included GIS (geographic information systems), NEMS (Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey), and photovoice research methods. Research included mapping of food sources (community gardens, farmers markets, grocery stores) with socioeconomic data, qualitative research on perceptions of the local food environment, and pilot intervention research to test a program linking local farms with clients of community non-profit agencies. The FHLC's role in facilitating the events and research and the larger impact of these on the community's increasing focus on the connection between food and health in local policy development demonstrate how medical researchers and communities can collaborate to build community research infrastructure.