Rochester Public Schools, Mayo Clinic Team to Address Community Health Needs

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Mayo Clinic is partnering with Rochester Public Schools and others in an innovative and uniquely funded joint effort to identify health education needs and promote good health practices in low-literacy populations within the community.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a grant to Rochester Healthy Communities Partnership, a collaboration that includes Rochester Public Schools' Hawthorne Education Center, Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota Rochester and Winona State University, to fund research identifying health education needs within the community and effective ways to address those needs.

"It is not unusual for Mayo Clinic to receive a NIH research grant, but for the school district to receive federal research funding is unique," says Julie Nigon, program manager of Hawthorne Education Center. "It's an affirmation that we're on the right track to finding a better way to work with specific populations within our community." The two-year seed grant began in September 2008. It supports the initial phases of research and is supplemented by funding from Mayo Clinic's Center for Translational Science Activities.

The study, intended to build partnerships to promote health in low-literacy populations, focuses on educating adults about preventable diseases and manageable conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension and tuberculosis. Learners and staff involved in Hawthorne Education Center's Adult and Family Literacy programs have volunteered to participate.

"The grant takes a community-based participatory research approach to promoting health, using the adult education model," says Irene Sia, M.D., a researcher in Mayo Clinic's Division of Infectious Diseases and the study's principal investigator. "We chose adult education, and particularly Hawthorne's program, to partner with because that model works. Hawthorne teaches its adult learners both language skills and the practical information they need — such as health literacy — to be knowledgeable members of this community."

Compared to traditional research, where researchers choose the problems to be studied and control the time frame, community-based participatory research takes more time, according to Dr. Sia. The community identifies the problems to be studied and helps choose the research method and participants, ensuring that the research is focused on real-world issues that impact community members' health. "Hawthorne learners and staff bring expertise Mayo researchers don't have to this study," says Dr. Sia. "We are working and learning together."

The Rochester Healthy Communities Partnership originally included Hawthorne Education Center and Mayo Clinic. Winona State University and, later, the University of Minnesota Rochester joined, and the four institutions applied for the NIH grant. Other members are Prince of Peace Church, Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association, Olmsted Medical Center, Olmsted County Public Health Services and individuals from the community. The Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation contributed funding and provided a model for asset-based community development. Rochester Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Romain Dallemand said that the school district actively seeks ways to partner with the Rochester business community and noted that school district staff, as well as learners, are instrumental to the program's success. "The unique nature of this relationship — Mayo Clinic partnering with the community in the form of its public schools — will lead to a deeper understanding of how we can best address real needs, like health literacy, in our community," he says. "We are more effective working together."

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