Project Summary
During Tier I, four “newcomer” communities (i.e., Spanish-speaking Latin Americans, Nepali-speaking Bhutanese, and Karen- and Chin-speaking Burmese) came together to form the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Research and Clinical Evaluation (CIRRCLE). We met five times in World Café meetings to identify and prioritize comparative effectiveness research (CER) ideas to improve health care for community members with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and we convened an advisory panel to lead and support these efforts. The CIRRCLE advisory panel (CAP) was composed of patients and family members from participating communities and representatives from healthcare-related stakeholder groups. In Tier II, we will move this work forward together as a partnership by (1) developing capacity of our CAP to conduct CER studies and collaborate with other local, regional, and national stakeholders; (2) developing our communication plan so that our messages and media are appropriate to their target audiences; and (3) continuing to work hand in hand with patients and family members to select a CER question from among the CER ideas identified in Tier I. To do this, we will hold monthly CAP meetings during which we provide panel members with training in patient-engaged research methods, make decisions about how the partnership will conduct patient-engaged research, and invite collaborators (stakeholders, researchers, and other ethnic community advisory board members) to discuss CER ideas and our group process. In addition, we will hold additional monthly “brown bag” lunches with our participating linguistic community members (in their own languages) and dedicated workshops for our advisory panel to develop our communication plan.