The Duke Clinical and Translation Science Institute (CTSI) Community Engagement Core has awarded Population Health Improvement Awards to four community-research partnership teams.
One of the awards goes to Sarahn Wheeler, MD assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Kelley Massengale, director of research and evaluation at the Diaper Bank of North Carolina who have partnered for the project, Engaging the Community to Understand and Eliminate Barriers to 17-P for Preterm Birth Prevention in Non-Hispanic Black Women. Massengale and Wheeler have been granted a co-development funding award to conduct focus groups to uncover patients’ perceptions of barriers to following healthcare provider recommendations about 17-P. Their objective is to develop and test clinic- and community-based interventions to increase uptake of prevention therapies for non-Hispanic Black women at high risk for preterm births.
These awards seek to foster community-research collaborations that improve local health. Successful awardees demonstrated a co-developed research process that is mutually beneficial to both the community and research partner, engages the local community in the full spectrum of research, values the expertise of community partners, and facilitates relationships that improve population health. The selected projects are funded for one year beginning in July 2017.
The projects awarded for 2017 aim to:
- Test options to identify social determinants of health in a clinical setting
- Develop an online referral system to connect seniors with community-based organizations
- Understand and eliminate barriers to treatment for preterm birth prevention in non-Hispanic black women
- Assess how institutions of higher education determine the health needs of their student populations