Improving post-hospital care for people who are homeless: Community-based participatory research to community-based action.

This article discusses how community-based participatory research (CBPR) on hospital care transitions in New Haven, Connecticut led to the development of a new medical respite program to better serve patients who are homeless. Key insights include: • Homelessness is an important driver of hospital utilization and must be addressed in efforts to decrease hospital readmissions. • Hospitals and community organizations often serve a shared patient/client base and can work together to develop innovative programs that are beneficial to all parties.

Building community capacity: sustaining the effects of multiple, two-year community-based participatory research projects.

Background: The time-limited nature of health and public health research fellowships poses a challenge to trainees' and community partners' efforts to sustain effective, collaborative, community-based participatory research (CBPR) relationships.

Objectives: This paper presents CBPR case studies of partnerships between health services research trainees and community organization leaders in a medium-sized city to describe how participation in the partnership altered community partners' understanding and willingness to conduct research and to engage with research-derived data.

Methods: Trainees and faculty used participatory methods with community leaders to identify research questions, and conduct and disseminate research.

Improving the quality of discharge care for the homeless: a patient-centered approach.

Homeless patients are at risk for low-quality discharge care, yet there are limited patient-centered data to guide improvement. We explored relationships between assessment of housing status by hospital staff and quality of discharge care using quantitative and qualitative data from interviews and chart reviews with 98 homeless patients: 80% male, mean homelessness 2.8 years, mean age 44.

Understanding transitions in care from hospital to homeless shelter: a mixed-methods, community-based participatory approach.

Background: Coordinated transitions from hospital to shelter for homeless patients may improve outcomes, yet patient-centered data to guide interventions are lacking.

Objectives: To understand patients' experiences of transitions from hospital to a homeless shelter, and determine aspects of these experiences associated with perceived quality of these transitions.

Designs: Mixed methods with a community-based participatory research approach, in partnership with personnel and clients from a homeless shelter.

Expanding the safety net of specialty care for the uninsured: a case study.

Objective: To describe core principles and processes in the implementation of a navigated care program to improve specialty care access for the uninsured.

Study Setting: Academic researchers, safety-net providers, and specialty physicians, partnered with hospitals and advocates for the underserved to establish Project Access-New Haven (PA-NH). PA-NH expands access to specialty care for the uninsured and coordinates care through patient navigation.

A physician team's experiences in community-based participatory research: insights into effective group collaborations.

Background: Postdoctoral fellows from the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program are among a growing number of physician-researchers training in community-based participatory research (CBPR). These fellows are uniquely positioned to observe and evaluate CBPR training needs and the experience of collaboratively conducting a CBPR project.

Purpose: To describe, from the perspective of physician-researchers, experiences in intragroup and intergroup collaborations while conducting CBPR.

Teaching community-based participatory research principles to physicians enrolled in a health services research fellowship.

To improve health and reduce inequities through health services research, investigators are increasingly actively involving individuals and institutions who would be affected by the research. In one such approach, community-based participatory research (CBPR), community members participate in every aspect of designing and implementing research with the expectation that this process will enhance the translation of research into practice in communities. Because few physician researchers have expertise in such community-based approaches to research, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation leadership expanded the mission of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (RWJCSP), which historically focused on health services and clinical research, to include training and mentored experiences in CBPR.