Rochester Healthy Community Partnership: A Sustainable Community Based Participatory Research Partnership with Immigrant and Refugees in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester Healthy Community Partnership (RHCP) started in 2004. Mayo Clinic and Hawthorne Education Center (an adult education center) formed a community academic partnership. This partnership matured by formalizing operating norms, adapting community based participatory research (CBPR) principles, adding dedicated partners from multiple sectors, conducting community health assessments, and completing several projects. The mission of RHCP is to promote health and well-being among the Rochester community through CBPR, education, and civic engagement to achieve health equity.
RHCP has developed an effective community-based research infrastructure that has facilitated extensive research training for community partners. We have become productive and experienced at deploying data-driven programming among immigrant populations. RHCP first obtained extramural funding in 2008 through the NIH Partners in Research Program (R03AI82703) to strengthen the CBPR partnership by developing a culturally sensitive health literacy program for immigrant populations. In 2011, RHCP received a grant for the Healthy Immigrant Families (HIF) study where we co-created an intervention on healthy eating and physical activity delivered to families in their homes by bilingual interventionists (R01HL111407). In 2018, RHCP received funding for a digital storytelling intervention to improve diabetes self-management behaviors and outcomes among immigrant populations (R01DK113999). In 2021, RHCP expanded on HIF with Healthy Immigrant Community (HIC). The aim of HIC is to study a social network, healthy lifestyle intervention to reduce cardiovascular risk among Hispanic and Somali immigrants and refugees (P50MD017342). Community and academic partners jointly conduct every phase of the research. Together we disseminate results through community forums, academic meetings, and peer-reviewed publications.
