Project Summary
Muslim communities remain on the margins of community health interventions, patient-centered research, and comparative effectiveness research due to deficiencies in knowledge, tools, and networks necessary for mosque community leaders to effectively launch, and partner in, health research. Further, health systems’ lack of knowledge to effectively engage mosque communities provides an additional barrier. The project team will fill in these gaps by capitalizing on the resources created by its PCORI-funded EMARCH project. Specifically, among other outputs, the team developed a toolkit that provides a roadmap for engaging stakeholders and implementing health research in mosques by incorporating evidence-based project management and PCOR techniques. The team will use this toolkit, and draw upon others relevant to the faith-based community contexts (e.g., Pastors4PCOR) to accelerate the uptake and adoption of PCOR/CER for community health outcome improvement in Chicagoland-area mosques. Engaging multiple channels (mosques and health systems) in the adoption of this toolkit will provide synergy for improving health and health care of Muslims.
Objectives:
- Establish partnerships with mosque communities across Chicagoland. These partnerships will serve as dissemination and implementation channels.
- Train and mentor CHWs in PCOR dissemination and implementation through staged activities
- Deliver a two-day symposium tailored for mosque leaders and community health stakeholders, as well as health clinic leaders
Activities:
CHWs will be trained on the toolkit, implement the engagement techniques at local mosques, and disseminate their work at a closing workshop. The CHWs will undertake PCORI Ambassador training, laying the foundations for greater mosque-based PCOR/CER activities after the project ends. Later in the project, the toolkit will be disseminated to larger audiences, including local healthcare clinic/system leaders, through a two-day workshop.
Outcomes:
- Ten mosque-based CHWs will be trained on and implement mosque-based PCOR. Quality evaluations of their mosque engagement plans will provide evidence of the toolkit’s adoption.
- Chicagoland-area mosques will become hubs and national models for PCOR activity, generating a culture of patient-centered health research, programming, and diverse stakeholder engagement for improving community health and reducing health inequities.
- Patients, caregivers, mosque leaders, health clinic/system administrators, researchers, and others will be trained in the mosque-based PCOR toolkit and gain insights into its implementation through a two-day conference. Surveys measuring knowledge and skills in these areas will be assessed and analysis of change scores will provide evidence of the work’s effectiveness.
The team will further engage mosque-community stakeholders by recruiting CHWs for PCOR training based on its toolkit. These CHWs will then engage patients, caregivers, mosque leaders, and healthcare systems during their implementation activities. Through targeted engagement activities, the CHWs will prime mosques for PCOR and pique stakeholder interests for the capstone two-day toolkit workshop.
The team will partner with the Initiative on Islam and Medicine at the University of Chicago as well as local Chicagoland mosques in the delivery of this project.