Strategies to Implement a Community-Based, Longitudinal Cohort Study: The Whole Communities-Whole Health Case Study.

Abstract

This paper discusses the implementation of the Whole Communities-Whole Health (WCWH) initiative, which is a community-based, longitudinal cohort study. WCWH seeks to better understand the impact of location on family health and child development while also providing support for families participating in the study. Implementing a longitudinal study that is both comprehensive in the data it is collecting and inclusive in the population it is representing is what makes WCWH extremely challenging. This paper highlights the learning process the initiative has gone through to identify effective strategies for implementing this type of research study and work toward building a new model for community-engaged research. Through iterative testing following the Plan-Do-Study-Act model, three main strategies for implementation were identified. These strategies are (1) creating a data collection schedule that balances participant burden and maintains temporality across data types; (2) facilitating multiple opportunities for qualitative and quantitative input from faculty, families, and nonparticipant community members; and (3) establishing an open-door policy for data analysis and interpretation. This paper serves as a guide and provides resources for other researchers wanting to implement a multidisciplinary and community-based cohort study.