Pounding the Pavement Together: Lessons Learned from an Environmental Assessment of East Harlem

Effective public health involves engaging community stakeholders in all stages of the intervention planning process. In an effort to assess the built environment to plan interventions that promote diabetes prevention and control, local researchers and community members from the Communities IMPACT Diabetes Center of Excellence in the Elimination of Disparities partnered to develop and conduct an environmental assessment of several census tracts in Harlem. After completion of the assessment, researcher and community resident dyads completed a survey about their experiences. These surveys were used to evaluate their collective experiences in engaging in collaborative research. Results of the environmental assessment show that researcher and community resident dyads were highly consistent in their objective observations of the built environment. Post-assessment surveys with research-community resident dyads provide additional data about how the personal history and experience of a community resident informs the research process. Surveys revealed a common interest in improving health in the community. In agreeing to partner with researchers, community residents expressed a desire to enact change in their community. At the same time community residents were concerned that their involvement in research could negatively impact their social standing in the neighborhood. Researchers gained a better understanding of the importance of using community residents' insider perspectives to contextualize the data. Garnering involvement from community residents fosters more active partnership and provides a new and innovative way to collect meaningful data. This approach to assessing the environment provided a foundation for future collaborative program planning around diabetes prevention and control in Harlem.