Building Sustainable Community-Linked Infrastructure to Enable Health Science Res

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The integrated, transformational strategies of the proposed Orange County Center for Community Health Research (OCCCHR) will potentially have a broad impact on health research and in the reduction of health disparities. The OCCCHR will utilize a state-of-the-art web-based resource portal and videoconference technology to improve information dissemination, technical assistance in, networking, training and mentoring between the Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and community based organizations. The web-based video conference training component builds on UCI's considerable experience with training students, faculty, and community providers. Prior projects have demonstrated that the bi-directional web-based training is an accessible, convenient and cost effective approach to improving participation and suggest that the OCCCHR's videoconference training component will be a powerful tool for increasing community and researcher capacity to engage in research. Furthermore, the annual planning retreat and team building workshops will utilize collaborative models that have proven to be successful planning strategies in Orange County. It will focus the collaborative strengths of the community agencies with the AHCs toward the development of an academic-community partnered health agenda and research projects. The proposed infrastructure should have a major public health impact as a model for information dissemination, resource sharing, web-based training and collaboration. Further, the proposed infrastructure provides the opportunity to improve utilization of health data to develop evidenced-based community research priorities, and increase community research capacity to engage in community-based participatory research. This model can be used to engage communities nationwide to improve the quantity and quality of academic-community partnered research that substantially accelerate the diffusion scientific advancements into the community, thereby reducing health disparities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The integrated, transformational strategies of the proposed Orange County Center for Community Health Research (OCCCHR) will potentially have a broad impact on health research and in the reduction of health disparities. The OCCCHR will utilize a state-of-the-art web-based resource portal and videoconference technology to improve information dissemination, technical assistance in networking, training and mentoring between the two AHCs and community based organizations. This model can be used to engage communities nationwide to improve the quantity and quality of academic-community partnered research that substantially accelerate the diffusion scientific advancements into the community, thereby reducing health disparities.