164 Health equity and injury: building community, research, and advocacy partnerships to address the national research and policy agenda

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this symposium is to discuss a successful collaboration model comprised of community, research, and advocacy partnerships, engage participants in an active discussion of the recently developed national research and policy agenda for health equity and injury, and develop new potential collaborations in this area. Topic Description Due to limited progress, health equity has been termed the ”forgotten aim” of the Institute of Medicine’s influential report on the new healthcare system of the 21 st century. Achieving health equity requires innovative collaborations. The presenters, along with a large group of interdisciplinary researchers and community partners coordinated through the University of Washington Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Centre, have been working together to identify and address disparities in injury-related healthcare. This work focuses on improving communication and language access, care transitions, community capacity building, injury prevention, violence prevention and intervention, and culturally relevant engagement to improve the health of our most vulnerable patient populations who experience disproportionate rates of injury and multiple socioeconomic barriers to recovery after injury. In Spring of 2017, presenters hosted the Injury-related Health Equity Across the Lifespan (I-HEAL) Symposium, a conference to establish the national agenda for policy and research. Presenters will elaborate on their successful model of community, research, and advocacy partnership to achieve injury-related health equity, the national policy and research agenda for injury and health equity developed at I-HEAL, and the ongoing challenges and facilitators of coordinating the research and policy agenda on a national level. Speaker Description Monica S. Vavilala, MD, will address a rationale for developing a National Policy on Health Equity after Injury. Megan Moore, PhD, MSW will discuss the national research and policy agenda developed by a national stakeholder group at the I-HEAL symposium. Carmen Gonzalez, PhD, will address the model of community, research, and advocacy partnership that has resulted in policy and research gains in the area of language access in healthcare. Janessa M. Graves, PhD MPH, will moderate the symposium and provide content expertise on health services and injury equity. Audience Engagement Presenters will provide a very brief 5 min overview of the key elements of their contribution to the symposium. Symposium will be moderated and efforts made to engage audience members in an interactive dialogue. These efforts include the following: active solicitation of dialogue from participants, participants will be given opportunity to write down a question or verbalise a question, and moderator will facilitate responses from presenters and participants to maximise open dialogue. Unique to this symposium is the goal to expand and build collaboration in health equity and injury. Participants will be encouraged to place their own work within the national research and policy agenda and link with researchers in the existing network to leverage and expand their work towards measurable, large-scale, and sustained impact.