Participatory Microbiome Research With Hmong and Karen Communities: Lessons Learned

Shannon Pergament,Dan Knights,Mary Xiong,Rodolfo Batres,Bwei Paw,Kathleen A Culhane-Pera,Nancy Yang,Pajau Vangay

doi:10.35844/001c.29669

Abstract

In this brief report, we share lessons learned from the Immigrant Microbiome Project (IMP), a microbiome research study conducted in partnership with the Hmong and Karen communities in Minnesota. Members of the IMP academic-community research team and community advisory board reflected on the community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach used for the IMP project, which informed these lessons learned. The IMP illustrates how microbiome researchers can utilize CBPR, which can improve the validity of research projects, create respectful partnerships, build trust between community members and researchers, and ensure that research results are returned to the community as actions that can improve health.

Highlights

Research about the human gut microbiome has revealed profound differences between populations (Fragiadakis et al, 2019; Smits et al, 2017; Vangay et al, 2018; Yatsunenko et al, 2012)
In particular, appear to be more vulnerable to rapid weight gain (Heney et al, 2014; Hervey et al, 2009) compared to immigrants, with Southeast Asian refugees exhibiting the highest average increases in Body Mass Index (BMI) (Careyva et al, 2015) after relocation to the U.S We hypothesized that the human gut microbiome, due to its important role in human health, was one of many complex factors that contribute to the “healthy immigrant effect.”
We started the Immigrant Microbiome Project (IMP) to test the hypothesis that relocating to the U.S would induce changes in the human gut microbiome, and that these gut microbial changes would contribute to the development of obesity

Summary

Introduction

Research about the human gut microbiome (microbial community in the intestinal tract) has revealed profound differences between populations (Fragiadakis et al, 2019; Smits et al, 2017; Vangay et al, 2018; Yatsunenko et al, 2012). The U.S hosts the largest number of immigrants in the world (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2017), and epidemiological evidence has shown that residency in the U.S increases the risk of obesity among immigrants, with some groups experiencing up to a four-fold increase in risk after 15 years (Bates et al, 2008; Cairney & Østbye, 1999; Goel et al, 2004; Kaplan et al, 2004; Lauderdale & Rathouz, 2000; Walker et al, 2008) This so-called “healthy immigrant effect” has been welldocumented in Western countries (Antecol & Bedard, 2006), and is attributed to many complex, interacting factors with varying effects that are dependent upon the subpopulation (Barcenas et al, 2007). Refugee children from Burma exhibited the steepest BMI increase after relocation compared with other refugee and non-refugee children (Dawson-Hahn et al, 2016); to our knowledge, disaggregated data for refugees of Karen ethnicity from Burma does not yet exist

Methods

Study Design

Findings

Discussion