Lessons learned through expanding clinical outreach into a large-scale academic-community research partnership in a coastal town

Clinical outreach from academic medical centers to rural communities provides a foundation for academic-community research partnerships. While Rural Practice-Based Networks and related approaches build on such relationships, few large-scale, population-based research projects have emerged from such initiatives in rural communities.

The Astoria and Warrenton’s Women’s Heart Health Initiative (AWHHI) was initiated in early 2012 with the objective of identifying heart disease risk factors among women residing in Clatsop County, Oregon. Clatsop County exhibits a high level of heart disease mortality when compared to the rest of Oregon. This paper illustrates the process of implementing this project in a non-urban setting, utilizing a longstanding academic-community partnership between Oregon Health and Science University (Portland, Oregon) and Columbia Memorial Hospital (Astoria, Oregon).

Mixed methods were used to obtain baseline data for a cohort of 430 women. Focus groups were followed up by the collection of sociodemographic data and clinical laboratory tests through two large health fair events held in January and April of 2013. Lessons learned include the need to diversify community advisory groups to achieve greater representation of the population, funding timeline constraints, regulatory and contractual challenges between institutions, and understanding that health information technology used for data collection needs to be adaptable for the needs of the community.

Our initial collaboration around the AWHHI project has lead to the formation of a community research advisory board, participation in a community based healthy advocacy group, the formation of the North Coast Research Alliance, and three future projects utilizing a CBPR model.