SPECIAL SESSION: Building Healthy Community Through Participatory Research

Description/Overview: Despite tremendous progress over the last decade that has been made in improving health in the U.S., many ethnic minority populations still experience significant health disparity gaps that stem from both a paucity of valid research and a lack of a culturally sensitive service infrastructure. Community based participatory research (CBPR) is a methodology that requires active community involvement in the processes that shape the development of research and intervention strategies, as well as in the implementation, evaluation and dissemination of research studies. CBPR and other participatory methodologies are being applied increasingly in a variety of areas in health research. These areas include health needs assessment, evaluation model development, and health service planning and development. The presentation by Dr. Miyong T. Kim will cover her professional and scientific journey over the past decade which has focused on the development of a strong program of research focusing on CBPR as a means of reducing health disparities among traditionally underserved ethnic minority populations. Dr. Kim’s research program examines the effectiveness of self care strategies for improving health outcomes and overcoming racial, ethnic and social disparities in healthcare. Using an immigrant community as a community laboratory to build sound translational science, her recent work has focused on Korean Americans. She has conducted several descriptive studies to explore and better define barriers and facilitators to equitable care for this racial and ethnic minority population. She has also led six intervention trials to test various self care strategies to improve cardiovascular health outcomes, (R15) funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, (twoR01s) funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), ( R34, R18) funded by National institute of Digestive, Diabetic and Kidney disease ( NIDDK). In the presentation, she will share lessons learned from her CBPR research process that links community building strategies and health outcomes for individuals from underserved communities.