Building Collaborative Health Promotion Partnerships: The Jackson Heart Study.

Clifton Addison,Lavon Young,Darcel Odom,Donna Antoine-Lavigne,Brenda Campbell Jenkins,Gregory Wilson,Marty Fortenberry

doi:10.3390/ijerph13010025

Abstract

Building Collaborative Health Promotion Partnerships: The Jackson Heart Study. Background: Building a collaborative health promotion partnership that effectively employs principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR) involves many dimensions. To ensure that changes would be long-lasting, it is imperative that partnerships be configured to include groups of diverse community representatives who can develop a vision for long-term change. This project sought to enumerate processes used by the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) Community Outreach Center (CORC) to create strong, viable partnerships that produce lasting change. Methods: JHS CORC joined with community representatives to initiate programs that evolved into comprehensive strategies for addressing health disparities and the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This collaboration was made possible by first promoting an understanding of the need for combined effort, the desire to interact with other community partners, and the vision to establish an effective governance structure. Results: The partnership between JHS CORC and the community has empowered and inspired community members to provide leadership to other health promotion projects. Conclusion: Academic institutions must reach out to local community groups and together address local health issues that affect the community. When a community understands the need for change to respond to negative health conditions, formalizing this type of collaboration is a step in the right direction.

Highlights

The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) is a large, community-based study of 5301 African Americans residing in the tri-county area of Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties in Mississippi
It is very well documented that African Americans in Mississippi communities and the Jackson Heart Study are faced with ongoing health challenges and that there is a large disparity in cardiovascular mortality between Mississippi African Americans and Mississippi Whites or African Americans from other parts of the US [1,2]
The interaction and collaboration between the JHS Community Outreach Center (CORC) and the Community Health Advisory Networks (CHAN) have paved the way for a new community interest in research activities

Summary

Introduction

The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) is a large, community-based study of 5301 African Americans residing in the tri-county area of Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties in Mississippi. To ensure that changes would be long-lasting, it is imperative that partnerships be configured to include groups of diverse community representatives who can develop a vision for long-term change This project sought to enumerate processes used by the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) Community Outreach. CORC joined with community representatives to initiate programs that evolved into comprehensive strategies for addressing health disparities and the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) This collaboration was made possible by first promoting an understanding of the need for combined effort, the desire to interact with other community partners, and the vision to establish an effective governance structure. When a community understands the need for change to respond to negative health conditions, formalizing this type of collaboration is a step in the right direction

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