Core--Community Action Core

The CHUM Community Action Core will pursue the goal of helping researchers and community leaders to work in a collaborative fashion to develop and sustain initiatives designed to reduce minority health disparities in the northern Manhattan (NM) community. The CAC will achieve this goal in considerable part by (1) developing an interdisciplinary Planning Council of leaders of CBOs and academic researchers, who will collectively develop, evaluate and modify approaches to community-based health promotion/disease prevention programming (2) training public health promotion specialists (PHPSs). These graduates of the Mailman School of Public Health's MPH program will work in community agencies but will also report to key personnel of the Core's Public Health Promotion Specialist program. The PHPSs will mediate between the agency and academic settings, assisting the agencies in fulfilling health promotion and information dissemination goals and giving them understanding of researchers' concerns while informing researchers of agency and community concerns and interests. The PHPSs will in effect constitute a key mechanism for advancing toward community participatory research. (3) enhance opportunities for bi-directional, meaningful, and respectful communication between community partners and academic researchers. Substantively, the Community Action Core will address three goals: (1) encouraging and equipping the community for potential participation in clinical studies and for partnering in the conduct of evidence-based disease prevention and intervention activities; (2) developing and disseminating culturally sensitive health information directly related to the research of CHUM or general health information presented in a culturally sensitive manner; and (3) sponsoring science education outreach activities in area middle and/or high schools.