Contents
- Cover Story
Engaging Communities
Critical Resources
Engaging Communities
Long-Lasting Relationships
In Pittsburgh, a successful partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and the community grew out of the joint efforts of two people. In 2002, Steven Reis, a professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, began recruiting subjects for his Heart Strategies Concentrating on Risk Evaluation (Heart SCORE) study, a community-based protocol to identify risk factors associated with heart disease.
Because the prevalence and severity of heart disease are much higher among African Americans than other U.S. populations, Reis wanted half of the 2,000 study participants to be African American. In the Pittsburgh region, however, only 12 percent of the population is of this racial group. “We wanted to recruit a study population that had 4 times the representation in the general population,” says Reis. “That seemed like a huge challenge.”
Lee Hipps, Jr., former executive vice president and chief operations officer of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, an organization that provides programs and services to about 35,000 people annually, offered to assist Reis in his recruitment efforts. Within two years, they achieved an astounding 100 percent of their recruitment goal among African Americans.
Sherry Brooks, community outreach coordinator for the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), prepares to analyze cholesterol levels in one of the participants at a health fair held in the employees’ cafeteria of Pepsi Bottling Group, Inc., in McKees Rocks, Pa. Another member of the CTSI, Mary Fisher, provides health and wellness educational information and literature on clinical research participation. The screening is one of many outreach activities by the CTSI designed to give members of the community health information and to listen to their concerns. Photo by Earl Zubkoff, Essential Eye Photographics.
“Key to our success was the willingness of Steve and the University of Pittsburgh to listen to the community’s needs,” says Hipps. “Rather than saying, ‘We want something from you,’ we went to the community asking, ‘What can we do for you?’” Hipps received resounding requests from the public for health screenings, such as for cholesterol and blood pressure. In response, Hipps says, “We started doing free screening at churches and community centers and then referred people to physicians for follow-up care.”
The university-community partnership, which has since been brought under the umbrella of the CTSI, developed into the Community PARTners (Partnering to Assist Research and Translation) Program, co-directed by Hipps and Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. “With the CTSI, we now have an institutional presence in the community,” says Reis, the institute’s director. “We provide a central resource for the community and for investigators.” And in light of the fact that community engagement programs require a long time to establish and sustain, Reis assures, “We expect the CTSI to be a long-term program at the University of Pittsburgh. Therefore, we can commit to a sustainable partnership with our community.”
The CTSI has three main goals, according to Reis, that affect three communities. “We want to have a research-informed general community, research-informed practicing physicians and nurses, and community-informed researchers,” he explains.
Through Community PARTners, the CTSI continues to provide free health screenings and information in various settings and has instituted a community-oriented speakers bureau through which researchers are available to speak to churches or other groups on key health topics. Consequently, educating speakers has also become a critical component of the program. “We do not assume that just because a researcher is an expert on a topic, he or she could talk to community members,” says Hipps. “It is not about impressing people with your knowledge but rather giving people the information they need.”
