Project Summary
Our engagement project is designed to increase the capacity of faith communities, youth, and stakeholders to lead, design, and conduct their own patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative effectiveness research (CER) studies. We will engage stakeholders to assist us in understanding the gaps in African-Americans’ knowledge about CER and PCOR in mental health, and design a curriculum to address these gaps. Our program team of a university researcher, a faith community leader, and a community mental health advocate will employ our knowledge of African-American culture and our outreach, research, and clinical experiences to partner with faith communities, patients, and stakeholders to empower them to conduct PCOR and CER for youth mental illness. Based on our conversations with stakeholders and patients, we believe that our initial step toward this long-term goal should be aligned the PCORI mission.
The projected output from this project is the development of a PCOR, CER and CBPR training curriculum to prepare African American youth patients/advocates, faith and community leaders in the basic tenets of PCOR, CER and CBPR. Our objective is to increase the capacity of Black faith communities to understand, lead and collaborate on mental health related disparities focused research.
Project collaborators include NC Suicide Survivor Consultants; Balance and Life Ministries (BALM), LLC in Washington, DC; and Community Advisory Board members (including teens) who represent 10 faith communities/organizations in the DC area and NC.