Theory Into Practice: Research Helps Latino Community Help ItselfThe partnership between the School of Public Health and Chicago’s Humboldt Park community illustrates what is possible when academic theory meets real life. The result is an innovative research approach that helps create culturally sensitive, mutually beneficial programs.
In 2004, a Sinai Health Systems report brought to light health disparities in Chicago and the need for preventive community-based health interventions. Armed with these findings and grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UIC’s School of Public Health partnered with Humboldt Park community representatives to explore how they deploy resources to solve problems like psychological distress, poor educational and economic resources, prevalence of asthma and diabetes, HIV/AIDS and housing shortages.
Researcher Michele Kelley is the driving force behind the collaborative relationship between UIC and the Humboldt Park community, located on Chicago’s West Side. “Sinai’s report was extremely valuable to us,” said Kelley. “We are trying to build on the momentum of that report and fill in some of the gaps, especially on adolescent health.”
The neighborhood is interested in improving its ability to heal itself. By engaging with the community, Kelley helps its members identify, think through and answer their own health questions.
“We can’t assume we will go into a community and create change,” said Kelley. “The community has locally relevant insight and knowledge, and it’s my job to try to understand it so that I don’t inadvertently get in the way of the learning process we’re sharing with each other. Our collaboration advances public health science, and we are learning how to be more effective in reducing and eliminating ethnic disparities in health.”
Kelley currently is working on plans for the community’s first-ever survey on adolescent health. The survey will identify critical health issues for youth as well as factors that may hold them back from becoming healthy adults.
Working with teens from Café Teatro Batey Urbano, a youth-driven alternative cultural arts and community action organization, Kelley will show them how to conduct their own research and analyze results. Youth in the community have first-hand knowledge about their peers and can provide advice on the survey while helping Kelley determine strategies to engage the interest of families to increase the response rate.
Ultimately the group will convene a youth summit to discuss their findings and develop a health action plan. Kelley foresees the group tapping into Batey Urbano’s new radio station as a way to disseminate health information to local teens. By working with the community to conduct their own research, she is one step closer to accomplishing her goal.
José López, a leader in the community and executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, has watched the partnership with the School of Public Health encourage community growth.
“The university does not come into the community and impose precepts and concepts but works with us to find ways to deal with health issues,” said López. “It not only has created consciousness, but has brought the concept of participatory research to us. It’s a process of continuous dialogue.”
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