The Healthy Community Neighborhood Initiative: Rationale and Design

Abstract

<p><strong>Objective</strong>: To describe the design and rationale of the Healthy Community Neighborhood Initiative (HCNI), a multicomponent<br />study to understand and document health risk and resources in a<br />low-income and minority community.</p><p><strong>Design</strong>: A community-partnered participatory research project.<br />Setting: A low-income, biethnic African American and Latino neighborhood in South Los Angeles.</p><p><strong>Participants</strong>: Adult community residents aged &gt;18 years.</p><p><strong>Main Outcome Measures</strong>: Household survey and clinical data collection; neighborhood characteristics; neighborhood observations; and community resources asset mapping.</p><p><strong>Results</strong>: We enrolled 206 participants (90% of those eligible), of whom 205 completed the household interview and examination,<br />and 199 provided laboratory samples. Among enrollees, 82 (40%) were aged &gt;50 years and participated in functional status<br />measurement. We completed neighborhood observations on 93 street segments; an average of 2.2 (SD=1.6) study participants<br />resided on each street segment observed. The community asset map identified 290 resources summarized in a Community Resource Guide given to all participants.</p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong>: The HCNI communityacademic partnership has built a framework to assess and document the individual, social, and community factors that may influence clinical and social outcomes in a community at high-risk for preventable chronic disease. Our project suggests that a community collaborative can use<br />culturally and scientifically sound strategies to identify community-centered health and social needs. Additional work is needed to<br />understand strategies for developing and implementing interventions to mitigate these disparities. <em>Ethn Dis</em>. 2016;26(1):123-132; doi:10.18865/ed.26.1.123</p>