Engagement practices that join scientific methods with community wisdom: designing a patient-centered, randomized control trial with a Pacific Islander community.
This article illustrates how a collaborative research process can successfully engage an underserved minority community to address health disparities. Pacific Islanders, including the Marshallese, are one of the fastest growing US populations. They face significant health disparities, including extremely high rates of type 2 diabetes. This article describes the engagement process of designing patient-centered outcomes research with Marshallese stakeholders, highlighting the specific influences of their input on a randomized control trial to address diabetes. Over 18 months, an interdisciplinary research team used community-based participatory principles to conduct patient-engaged outcomes research that involved 31 stakeholders in all aspects of research design, from defining the research question to making decisions about budgets and staffing. This required academic researcher flexibility, but yielded a design linking scientific methodology with community wisdom.
Office of Community Health and Research, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
Pearl Anna
PA
McElfish
College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA.
Peter A
PA
Goulden
Division of Biostatistics and Center for Population Sciences, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA.
Zoran
Z
Bursac
College of Pharmacy, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
Jonell
J
Hudson
Office of Community Health and Research, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
Rachel S
RS
Purvis
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA.
Karen H
KH
Kim Yeary
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
Nia
N
Aitaoto
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
Peter O
PO
Kohler
D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D044468:Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; D063868:Patient Outcome Assessment; D012107:Research Design
Marshallese; Pacific Islanders; community-based participatory research; diabetes; health disparities; patient-centered outcomes research