Community healthy lifestyles partnership project (C-HeLP): A community-based participatory research (CBPR) training and surveying experience for community health advocates (CHAs)

Within Chicago, Illinois, the Austin community is a densely populated, 90% African American community with nearly 118,000 residents, with known high rates for heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Peer-to-peer education regarding chronic disease topics is a vital component of health promotion in medically underserved communities. National Institutes of Health funding has provided the impetus for an equitable community-university partnership in Austin, between the Westside Health Authority (a community-based organization) and Northwestern University's (NU) Feinberg School of Medicine, which has focused on training Community Health Advocates (CHAs) to conduct human subject research via door-to-door surveying concerning health needs in Austin. The CHAs played an integral role in the development of the training modules, the creation and refinement of the survey instruments, and the administration of the survey to a randomized sample of over 300 households. The health information compiled will be utilized to inform a health intervention to address the prevention, assessment, and treatment of chronic disease in this community. The process in which community members participated in a six-week training curriculum preparing them to conduct human subject survey research in this urban community will be detailed. The report will include both quantitative and qualitative results: both the members' reports of their experiences within the training phase of the C-HeLP project and their responses to a four month period in which a roughly 30-item, two version survey was administered. Finally, an analysis of the preliminary survey findings will be discussed.