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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Ling Shi, MHS, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 North Wolfe Street, Room W4510, Baltimore, MD 21205, 443-255-5385, lshi3@jhsph.edu, Amy Covas, RN, BSN, Family Care Center, Saint James Hospital, 228 Lafayette Street, Newark, NJ 07105, and Fannie Fonseca-Becker, DrPH, Director, J&J Community HealthCare Scholars Program, and Sr. Research Associate, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, MD 21202.

Background: The Saint James Hospital Family Care Center is a community-based organization that provides comprehensive perinatal health care services to predominantly Brazilian, Protuguese and African American residents of the Iron Bound Section of Newark, New Jersey. The Family Resources Initiative Project was launched in 2004 to provide poor and uninsured women with nutritional and social work counseling, health education and referral services. A community-academic partnership between the Family Care Center and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, with funding support from the Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Program, resulted in community-based organization's increased capacity in program monitoring and evaluation. Methods: The community and academic partners worked collaboratively in designing the project evaluation plan, including the desired outcomes, the conceptual framework and data collection instruments. Compatible goals and timelines were developed to ensure clear commitment to the project from the partners. The project staff were trained by the academic partner to use EPI INFO for database creation, data entry, analysis and presentation. Results: During the two years of collaboration, the community-based organization's staff learned the use of the conceptual framework for program evaluation, data management, basic statistical analysis and interpretation of the results. At the same time, the academic partner gained an understanding of the special monitoring and evaluation needs of community-based programs. Conclusion: A collaborative partnership between the community organizations and academic institutions is a mutual learning process, in which the academic partners gain the hands-on experience while the community-based organizations achieve the built-in capacity for long term sustainability.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the participants in this session will be able to
• Identify the roles and contributions of the community-based organizations and the academic institutions in the planning, management, monitoring and evaluation of the community health programs.
• List the specific benefits of community-academic partnerships to both the community-based organizations and the academic institutions.
• Recognize the processes and challenges in building successful partnerships as well as the strategies and solutions for the challenges.

Keywords: Community-Based Partnership, Women's Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered