Coordinated Community Partnerships

In collaboration with its advisory board and community-benefits partners, the Community Health Innovation and Research Program at Harvard Catalyst (HC-CHIRP) develops, supports, and evaluates community-based projects coordinating research, policy, public health, and clinical strategies. These projects translate research to policy and practice, providing significant research opportunities to faculty and students.

Examples of coordinated community partnerships include:

Healthy Homes Pilot Project

Healthy Homes is a project taking place in two Massachusetts communities that have high rates of asthma and lead exposure, using a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to improve the identification, treatment, and prevention of lead paint poisoning, asthma, and injury in children. HC-CHIRP connected a Harvard School of Public Health Environmental Health faculty member and a Harvard School of Public Health student to a working group sponsored by the MA Department of Public Health, to develop a new multi-focus Healthy Homes initiative. The HC-CHIRP team is helping to design, support, and evaluate this pilot project, which will bring together a range of community partners, including community health centers, public schools, community health workers, and housing inspectors. Forty children will be identified from each community who are at risk of lead poisoning or who have a diagnosis of asthma. The homes of these children will be assessed, and interventions applied as necessary. The HC-CHIRP team is developing appropriate home assessment tools and intervention algorithms.

Improving Health Care Access and Utilization - FastTrack Evaluation

Partnering with the HSPH Center for Public Health Leadership, the Community Benefits Offices of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and two community health centers, an innovative problem-solving approach - FastTrack - is being used on a trial basis to solve specific clinical and administrative problems in a 100 day time-frame. HC-CHIRP is supporting these projects through funding and by providing process evaluation support.

The DFCI project, in collaboration with Whittier Street Health Center, will address racial inequities in cancer detection and treatment by bringing oncologists to a community health center. In addition, procedures will be streamlined to reduce the time from suspicion of cancer to diagnosis. Based on the work conducted through this project, all clinical and administrative systems needed to open the Cancer Care Equity Center at Whittier Street CHC in January, 2012, are in place.

The MGH project, in collaboration with MGH Charlestown HealthCare Center, will streamline and improve procedures for evaluating Hepatitis C-infected recovering addicts (on Suboxone, an opioid maintenance treatment) in Charlestown. The goal of the FastTrack is to fully evaluate all current Hepatitis C-infected Suboxone patients, and to bring more of these patients into treatment for their Hepatitis C. This population is historically hard to reach and hard to treat. In addition, if these patients go untreated and experience liver failure, the associated medical costs can be astronomical.

Extending Planet MassCONECT to Two New Communities

Through a supplemental grant from NIH, HC-CHIRP is working with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the Tufts University Clinical and Translational Science Institute to bring DFCI's Planet MassCONECT (Massachusetts Community Network to Eliminate Cancer Disparities Through Education Research and Training) to Brockton and Lowell as a means of building sustainable and generalizable capacity while addressing a specific health priority chosen by the communities. Planet MassCONECT is an evidence-based systems approach to accelerate and sustain the knowledge translation cycle. Developed in Lawrence, Worcester, and Boston and grounded in principles of community-based participatory research, PLANET MassCONECT includes three components: (1) capacity building through its Institute for Community Health Program Planning; (2) a tool kit that includes a website (http://PLANETMassCONECT.org), training manual, handouts, and case studies; and (3) pilot grants to provide practical experience in using PLANET MassCONECT tools.

For more information on HC-CHIRP's Coordinated Community Partnerships, please contact Charles Deutsch, ScD, or Jennifer Opp.

Continued Engagement with the Community

In its first three years, Harvard Catalyst supported Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) planning grants with diverse research objectives, including:

• Assessing the Efficacy of Outreach Efforts and Mobile Mammography
• From Homeless to Housed: Assessing the Impact on Health Outcomes
• Assessing Disparities in Reduction of Body Mass Index in Cambridge Youth

Harvard Catalyst's Community Engagement effort is now supported through HC-CHIRP, focusing on creating a coordinated approach to community-based research that includes policy partners, community health centers, and community-based organizations.