Engaging community in developing, implementing, and evaluating a multilevel community-based culturally situated website

Background: Community-academic partnerships have historically been challenging for researchers and community participants alike because of differing languages, objectives, and cultures. The defining of interventions as multilevel, community-based, and culturally situated emphasizes the importance of understanding community context as prelude to community intervention. This approach was used to develop, implement, and evaluate a locally-focused health information and social networking website in Harlem, New York City. Methods: Focus groups, key informant interviews, and a telephone survey were used to elicit consumer ideas and feedback for the website. Community partnerships and a community advisory group were formed to provide ongoing direction and support. The development process was an iterative progression by which key processes and decisions were discussed among the advisory group members and researchers until consensus was reached. Results: Based upon partner feedback, the GetHealthyHarlem.org website was created and implemented with educational content capable of being rated by users and social networking capacity for blogging, joining discussion groups, and posting events. Partnerships were critical for ensuring the website would benefit from and be utilized by a wide range of users. A growing social justice movement in Harlem around health issues, especially food, was evident as site users created and voted on content and communicated online. Conclusions: Engaging community in the creation of a website intervention allowed for both consumer and professional feedback to be well integrated into its content and functionality. The community relationships formed better ensured a central role of community context and culture in conceptualizing, implementing, and evaluating the intervention.