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Our Community, Our Health
Description
Our Community, Our Health is a joint program between Washington University (WU) and Saint Louis University (SLU) to disseminate relevant and culturally appropriate health information and actively engage the St. Louis community in partnerships to help address local health disparities.
Although the health care available to the St. Louis region is among the best in the world, persistent — and profound — gaps in health status exist in parts of St. Louis. Death rates from diabetes and cancer are 30% higher in some areas and there is a 15-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and most underserved areas. WU and SLU recognize the need to collectively address these disparities and consider improving the relevance and conduct of community-based research to be key strategies in eliminating disparities. Our Community, Our Health serves as a forum to deliver relevant health information stemming from research and facilitates the development and strengthening of community-academic partnerships through co-learning workshops/initiatives to increase, improve, and coordinate community engagement in research.
Goals
- Establish a culturally-centered conference series that focuses on dissemination of relevant health information
- Develop community-academic partnerships to conduct community-based research to address health disparities
- Align academic research priorities with health priorities identified by the community
Survey Results
During an interactive survey of 149 participants at the Our Community, Our Health conference on October 29, 2009 in St. Louis, MO, the following health priorities were identified:
1. Cancer
2. Cardiovascular Disease
3. Tie - Diabetes and Homicide
4. HIV/AIDS
5. Sexually Transmitted Diseases
6. Chronic Kidney Disease
7. Chronic Lung Disease
8. Flu/Pneumonia
This rank of priorities is similar to other data collected by the State of Missouri in focus groups and presented in its 2008 Health Dispartities Report. In the other assessments, diabetes and cardiovascular disease were the top two priorities; however, cancer was not assessed as a single disease but multiple cancers (including lung and colorectal cancer) were considered.
View the results from the conference Interactive Survey about health disparities in St. Louis.
Partners
OCOH is committed to developing community-academic partnerships, facilitating active and meaningful community engagement in research, and helping align research priorities with the health priorities identified by the community. We invite community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, and public health organizations/practitioners to be our partners.
There are no fees to become an OCOH partner and benefits include:
- Invitations to special events such as capacity building programs
- Access to resources to facilitate grant writing and grant management
- Opportunities to partner with other organizations and academic faculty
If you would like to be become an OCOH partner or learn more about becoming a partner, please email us at ocoh@dom.wustl.edu.
Please see our list of advisory board members and organizational chart below for more information about the role of partners.
Advisory Board
Organizational Model
Past Conferences
October 6, 2010
Our Community, Our Health held a conference, "Addressing Social Determinants of Health through Community-Engaged Research," on Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at the Missouri History Musuem in Forest Park, in the Des Lee Auditorium. Speakers included the Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Action Institute (REHDAI ) Team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The conference was free and open to the public.
The goals of this conference were to:
- Encourage organizational change; and promoting policy initiatives that target social determinants of health contributing to health inequities by race/ethnicity, income, social class, and other related factors.
- Provide participants with a better understanding about how to determine the social factors on which to intervene, how to incorporate new partners into social determinants work, and how the public health community can influence social policies to reduce health disparities.
- Improve practical understanding about developing, implementing, and evaluating social health determinant interventions.
We invited community organizational leadership and staff, community leaders, public health practitioners, academic researchers, governmental leaders and staff, and all those working to incorporate social determinants of health into the planning, development, implementation and evaluation of their initiatives to join us.
October 6, 2010 Conference Agenda
October 6, 2010 Conference Slides
February 10, 2010
The St. Louis Community/University Health Research Partnerships and Our Community, Our Health presented a skills building workshop on Wednesday, February 10. Individuals applying for CUHRP funds were encouraged to attend. For additional information, see the flyer below.
February 10 Workshop
October 29, 2009
The inaugural Our Community, Our Health conference was held on Thursday, October 29, 2009. "Community-Academic Partnerships to Reduce Health Disparities in St. Louis" focused on local health disparities concerns, the need to improve dissemination of health information, and the importance of community and academic partnerships to promote health and translate research into practice. Please see the attached agenda for conference details.
Keynote Speaker: Gloria Wilder, MD, MPH. "Community Health Equity: Ending Disparity by Promoting Social Justice"
View the results from the conference Interactive Survey about health disparities in St. Louis.
Supporters
Our Community, Our Health is just one of the academic institutions' efforts to address health disparities and engage the community. Our Community, Our Health is supported by:
Washington University:
Saint Louis University: