title: The Los Angeles Healthy Community Neighborhood Initiative: A Ten Year Experience in Building and Sustaining a Successful Community-Academic Partnership.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Developing effective Community-Academic Partnerships (CAPs) is challenging, and the steps to build and sustain them have not been well documented. This paper describes efforts to form and sustain the Healthy Community Neighborhood Initiative (HCNI), a CAP to improve health in a low-income community in South Los Angeles.
  
  
  METHODS
  Moderated, semi-structured discussions with HCNI community and academic partners were used to develop a framework for CAP formation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified two key features, shared values and respect, as critical to the decision to form the HCNI. Five elements were identified as necessary for building and sustaining the HCNI: trust, transparency, equity and fairness, adequate resources and developing protocols to provide structure. We also identified several challenges and barriers and the strategies used in the HCNI to mitigate these challenges.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We developed a framework to incorporate and reinforce the key elements identified as crucial in building and sustaining a CAP in a low-income community.
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Keyonna M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Los Angeles Urban League, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: D'Ann
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.affiliation: Healthy African American Families, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Loretta
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Healthy African American Families, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Aziza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lucas-Wright
authors.affiliation: Healthy African American Families, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Felica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles; Department of Aging, Charles R Drew University, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Homero E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Del Pino
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Los Angeles Urban League, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA; Department of Aging, Charles R Drew University, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Courtney
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Porter
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles; Department of Aging, Charles R Drew University, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Arleen F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Keith C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Norris
keywords: Building partnerships; Community-academic partnership; Community-based participatory research; Memorandum of understanding; Sustaining partnerships