Project Summary
Historically, there has been an uphill struggle for inclusion and accessibility to critical decision-making processes relating to health care and effective patient-centered engagement within high-risk, low-income areas and communities of color. Individuals, families, and communities are often included as an afterthought in pertinent discussions regarding their immediate and future needs. Continuing to handle key stakeholders in this manner will lead to an even greater disconnect of individuals from life-sustaining resources and partnerships. In looking at these collaborative breaks, a possible reason undergirding this problem is the lack of a trusted centralized infrastructure that can proactively bridge the gaps of advocacy and engagement.
To address this problem, Pastors 4 PCOR (P4P) proposes the development and implementation of a faith-based hub model that will generate synergy among key stakeholders and entities, in accordance with the conduct of patient-centered outcomes research and comparative clinical effectiveness research (PCOR/CER). At an even deeper level, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care continue to exist in communities nationwide, and one way to address this is to strive to increase participation of underserved populations in health research within a trusted atmosphere. Gaining the real-time insight and perspective of those served, along with key stakeholders, will help to improve accessibility and availability of targeted health resources. This is exactly what a Community Support Hub is capable of doing. A Community Support Hub would also enable P4P to further build and strengthen its capacity within faith-based communities in order to engage in equitable partnerships with researchers. From this now open dialogue, developing and implementing strategies for creating a Community Support Hub will generate a synergy among the six key communities and stakeholders that P4P strives to reach for research inclusion and options for answering: "Which treatment works best, for whom, and under what circumstances?"
In developing the Community Support Hub, this project will also provide a vehicle for unifying the voices of stakeholders and the various communities impacted. Through the team’s efforts as a Community Support Hub for advocacy and research partnership programs, and in collaboration with researchers as partners, the team aims to establish a broader reach allowing P4P and its communities to make a citywide impact on health outcomes.