Comparative Evaluation of 2 Work Experience Approaches for Predominantly Black Youth in a Rural Community: Implications for Public Health Workforce Development.

Context: In order to create a more diverse workforce, there is a need to involve historically excluded youth in public health-related work. Youth involvement in asset-based work experience approaches is especially relevant for rural areas with workforce shortages.

Objective: To explore the public health workforce development implications of community-based career exploration and asset mapping work experience from the perspective of Black youth.

A Cluster Randomized Trial of a Community-Based Intervention Among African-American Adults: Effects on Dietary and Physical Activity Outcomes.

Evidence of the effectiveness of community-based lifestyle behavior change interventions among African-American adults is mixed. We implemented a behavioral lifestyle change intervention, Heart Matters, in two rural counties in North Carolina with African-American adults. Our aim was to evaluate the effect of Heart Matters on dietary and physical activity behaviors, self-efficacy, and social support.

Understanding African American youth and adult perspectives on sex education in rural North Carolina.

African American youth in the US rural South are at elevated risk for poor sexual health outcomes, including sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancy. Historically, the southeastern USA has lagged behind in providing comprehensive sexuality-based education in secondary school, which may contribute to poor reproductive and sexual health outcomes. This study aims to understand the perspectives of African American youth and adults on comprehensive sexuality-based education in rural North Carolina.

Adaptation of an Evidence-Based Cardiovascular Health Intervention for Rural African Americans in the Southeast.

Background: African Americans (AA) living in the southeast United States have the highest prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and rural minorities bear a significant burden of co-occurring CVD risk factors. Few evidence-based interventions (EBI) address social and physical environmental barriers in rural minority communities. We used intervention mapping together with community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to adapt objectives of a multi-component CVD lifestyle EBI to fit the needs of a rural AA community.

Convergence Despite Divergence: Views of Academic and Community Stakeholders about the Ethics of Community-Engaged Research.

Purpose: Stakeholder engagement and community-engaged research (CEnR) are recognized as approaches necessary to promote health equity. Few studies have examined variations in stakeholder perspectives on research ethics despite the potential for meaningful differences. Our study examines the association between stakeholders' characteristics and their perception of the importance of 15 stakeholder-developed CEnR ethical statements.

Heart Matters: a study protocol for a community based randomized trial aimed at reducing cardiovascular risk in a rural, African American community.

Background: African Americans living in the rural south have the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in the United States. Given this geographic and racial disparity, intervention implementation needs to be evaluated for effectiveness and feasibility with African Americans in the rural south.

Methods: The trial developed out of a community-based participatory research partnership, Project GRACE, and community partners who are collaborators throughout the study.

Stakeholder-driven, consensus development methods to design an ethical framework and guidelines for engaged research.

Increasingly, researchers seek to engage communities, patients, and stakeholders as partners in the process and products of health research. However, there is no existing stakeholder-driven ethical framework for such engaged scholarship. We employed an iterative, stakeholder-engaged method to develop a data-driven framework for the ethical review and conduct of engaged scholarship.

Community Advisory Boards Guiding Engaged Research Efforts within a Clinical Translational Sciences Award: Key Contextual Factors Explored.

Background: Engaging stakeholders in research carries the promise of enhancing the research relevance, transparency, and speed of getting findings into practice. By describing the context and functional aspects of stakeholder groups, like those working as community advisory boards (CABs), others can learn from these experiences and operationalize their own CABs. Our objective is to describe our experiences with diverse CABs affiliated with our community engagement group within our institution's Clinical Translational Sciences Award (CTSA).

Understanding the relationship between religiosity and caregiver-adolescent communication about sex within African-American families.

Caregiver-adolescent communication about sex plays a critical role in the sexual socialization of youth. Many caregivers, however, do not engage their youth in such conversations, potentially placing them at risk for negative sexual health outcomes. Lack of caregiver-adolescent communication about sex may be particularly harmful for rural African American youth, as they often report early sex initiation and are disproportionately impacted by STIs.

Evaluating Teach One Reach One-An STI/HIV Risk-Reduction Intervention to Enhance Adult-Youth Communication About Sex and Reduce the Burden of HIV/STI.

Purpose: Parents and caregivers play an important role in sexual socialization of youth, often serving as the primary source of information about sex. For African American rural youth who experience disparate rates of HIV/sexually transmitted infection, improving caregiver-youth communication about sexual topics may help to reduce risky behaviors. This study assessed the impact of an intervention to improve sexual topic communication.

Applying Cognitive Interviewing to Inform Measurement of Partnership Readiness: A New Approach to Strengthening Community-Academic Research.

Background: Partnerships between academic and community-based organizations (CBOs) can richly inform the research process and speed translation of findings. Although immense potential exists to co-conduct research, a better understanding of how to create and sustain equitable relationships between entities with different organizational goals, structures, resources, and expectations is needed.

Objective: We sought to engage community leaders in the development of an instrument to assess CBOs' interest and capacity to engage with academia in translational research partnerships.

Adolescents and parental caregivers as lay health advisers in a community-based risk reduction intervention for youth: baseline data from Teach One, Reach One.

The purpose of the current study is to describe the demographic, behavioral, and psychosocial characteristics of adolescent and caregiver lay health advisers (LHAs) participating in an intervention designed to reduce risk behaviors among rural African-American adolescents. Teach One, Reach One integrates constructs from the Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Cognitive Theory. It acknowledges that changing the sexual behaviors of African-American adolescents requires changing one's knowledge, attitudes, normative beliefs about the behavior of peers, and self-efficacy regarding adolescent sexual behavior, parent-teen communication about sex, and healthy dating relations among adolescents.

Data Collection and Management in Community Engaged Research: Lessons Learned From Two Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships.

Background: Data collection and data management (DCDM) within community-engaged research (CEnR) requires special considerations that differ from those of traditional research. To date, little guidance exists to preemptively help community-academic partnerships anticipate and resolve DCDM issues that may arise.

Objective: We sought to provide recommendations for DCDM based on two CEnR research projects.

Beyond incentives for involvement to compensation for consultants: increasing equity in CBPR approaches.

Background: Community-based participatory research (CBPR) strives for equitable collaboration among community and academic partners throughout the research process. To build the capacity of academia to function as effective research partners with communities, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS), home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH)'s Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA), developed a community engagement consulting model. This new model harnesses the expertise of community partners with CBPR experience and compensates them equitably to provide technical assistance to community-academic research partnerships.

The role of public schools in HIV prevention: perspectives from African Americans in the rural South.

Though African-American youth in the South are at high risk for HIV infection, abstinence until marriage education continues to be the only option in some public schools. Using community-based participatory research methods, we conducted 11 focus groups with African-American adults and youth in a rural community in North Carolina with high rates of HIV infection with marked racial disparities. Focus group discussions explored participant views on contributors to the elevated rates of HIV and resources available to reduce transmission.

Project GRACE: a staged approach to development of a community-academic partnership to address HIV in rural African American communities.

The HIV epidemic is a health crisis in rural African American communities in the Southeast United States; however, to date little attention has been paid to community-academic collaborations to address HIV in these communities. Interventions that use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to address individual, social, and physical environmental factors have great potential for improving community health. Project GRACE (Growing, Reaching, Advocating for Change and Empowerment) uses a CBPR approach to develop culturally sensitive, feasible, and sustainable interventions to prevent the spread of HIV in rural African American communities.

Intervention mapping as a participatory approach to developing an HIV prevention intervention in rural African American communities.

Southeastern states are among the hardest hit by the HIV epidemic in this country, and racial disparities in HIV rates are high in this region. This is particularly true in our communities of interest in rural eastern North Carolina. Although most recent efforts to prevent HIV attempt to address multiple contributing factors, we have found few multilevel HIV interventions that have been developed, tailored or tested in rural communities for African Americans.

In their own voices: rural African American youth speak out about community-based HIV prevention interventions.

Background: The HIV epidemic is a major public health problem in the United States, particularly among rural African American adolescents and young adults.

Objectives: We sought to explore young, rural African American's perspectives about key programmatic components to consider when designing youth-targeted, community- based HIV prevention interventions.

Methods: We report data from four focus groups with adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 24 (n = 38) conducted as part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project designed to develop multilevel HIV risk reduction interventions in two rural North Carolina communities with high HIV rates.

In their own voices: rural African-American youth speak out about community-based HIV prevention interventions.

Background: The HIV epidemic is a major public health problem in the United States, particularly among rural African American adolescents and young adults.

Objectives: We sought to explore young, rural African American’s perspectives about key programmatic components to consider when designing youth-targeted, community-based HIV prevention interventions.

Methods: We report data from four focus groups with adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 24 ( = 38) conducted as part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project designed to develop multilevel HIV risk reduction interventions in two rural North Carolina communities with high HIV rates.