Background: A long history of financial disinvestment, decentralized regional identity, and political turmoil and corruption have exacerbated the presence of social determinants of health that have created and perpetuated persistent disparities in health outcomes for Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) residents.

Proposed Solution to the Problem: The AltaMed Institute for Health Equity proposes to design and implement the Patient-centered outcomes research by Activating Residents through Training, Network-building, and Engagement in Research in Southeast Los Angeles (PARTNER-SELA) program, leveraging principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to build capacity within the SELA community to engage in PCOR. PARTNER-SELA will approach capacity building among residents in the region through two main strategies: training with a focus on CBPR methodologies and network building by establishing a PARTNER Ambassadors Network that will serve as the community link to PCOR opportunities.

Objectives:The PARTNER-SELA program aims to build capacity within the Southeast Los Angeles community to engage primarily in PCOR (and in the long term, CER) by leveraging CBPR methodologies with the overarching purpose of addressing health disparities experienced by residents of the region. Long term, this project will increase the representation of Latino and immigrant residents of Southeast Los Angeles in PCOR/CER.

Activities: The focus of Year 1 will be to develop the PARTNER-SELA Academy by engaging community residents in developing the structure and activities that will be used to deliver the content. The primary goal of Year 2 is to continue training community residents and to begin building the network for sustained engagement among them.

Projected Outcomes and Outputs: At the end of the two-year project, the project team expects to accomplish the following outcomes: increase the number of individuals in the SELA region who are trained to engage in PCOR from a baseline of 0 to a minimum of 40 by the end of the project; improve infrastructure for sustainable engagement of SELA residents in PCOR by establishing a resident-facilitated PARTNER Ambassador Network; and develop a community-generated guide for engaging SELA residents in PCOR.

Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan: The primary group that will be engaged through PARTNER-SELA consists of SELA residents/patients who are disproportionately uninsured and receive care at community health centers. At the center of the proposed project is engaging SELA residents/patients at every step of this initiative. The secondary group that will be engaged is composed of researchers, academic institutions, and health systems that are conducting or are interested in conducting PCOR and CER in SELA. The PARTNER-SELA Ambassadors Network will lead the development of a guide for researchers and stakeholders who want to engage the SELA community in PCOR and CER. With support from AltaMed’s Institute for Health Equity, the Ambassadors Network will then disseminate this guide to local stakeholders and invite them to a roundtable, workshop, or conversation where the Ambassadors Network can recap the community’s research priorities.

Project Collaborators: AltaMed will be collaborating with researchers from University of New Mexico Center for Participatory Research (UNM CPR) to develop and evaluate the curriculum. These partners will also provide technical assistance on developing and sustaining research-based community groups.