RIVERWEST HEALTH INITIATIVE

Jim Sanders, MD, MPH (Medical College) and Mary Jo Baisch, PhD, RN (UW-Milwaukee) had an article published in the spring 2008 edition Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action.  This is a publication of The Johns Hopkins University Press.  The title of their article is, "Community-Based Participatory Action: Impact on a Neighborhood Level Community Health Improvement Process."

Ann Maguire, MD, MPH (Medical College) presented a poster entitled, "Health Related Barriers to Employment: An Analysis of Data from a Welfare Reform Program," on April 10, 2008 at the 31st National Society of General Medicine Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh.  The theme of the conference was Translating Research into Practice: Enhancing Education, Patient Care, and Community Health.  This presentation will be published in a supplement to the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Maquire's abstract has been accepted for presentation at the 41st Annual meeting of Society for Clinical Epidemiology in Chicago, June 24-27, 2008.  Accepted abstracts will be distributed at the June meeting and will be published in a supplement to the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Community Campus Partnerships for Health 10th Annual Conference
April 11-14, 2007:  Toronto, Canada

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) is a nonprofit organization that promotes health (broadly defined) through partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions. Founded in 1996, it is a growing network of over 1,200 communities and campuses across North America and increasingly the world that are collaborating to promote health through service-learning, community-based participatory research, broad-based coalitions and other partnership strategies. These partnerships are powerful tools for improving higher education, civic engagement and the overall health of communities. Click on each poster for a larger view.

The Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program participated in this annual conference by hosting a thematic poster session that described how community-academic partnership projects address social determinants of health and grassroots movements to impact policy change through: involving those most impacted by the problem in health interventions; supporting the development of advocacy skills and abilities of grassroot resident leaders; addressing access to health care as a basic determinant of health; addressing health status as a key to successful employment. This session featured five funded partnership posters that reported on HWPP grantee experiences and lessons learned.

SABER PARA LA GENTE/KNOWLEDGE FOR THE PEOPLE: CREATING A CHAIN OF MEANINGFUL INFORMATION
Presenters: Carolina Gonzalez Schlenker, Latino Health Organization, Inc.; Christine Cronk, Medical College of Wisconsin; Babara Leigh, Milwaukee Public Theatre; Ben Ortega, Spanish Center of Kenosha, Racine and Walworth Counties, Inc.
The goal of Saber para la Gente is to explore an alternative approach to portray, monitor and address minority health. Health programs for minorities have been planned and designed using the evidence presented by a list of health indicators and their numerical gap with the white population. This approach to health resource allocation has proved to be ineffective and wasteful. Most of the lacking information is inside people as a lack of awareness about what health events are and how their lives are impacted by them. The project begins with providing a setting for stories to be told and organizing the stories in a matrix that makes them meaningful. The information then is presented back to the people as an interactive theatre performance (Forum Theatre) that provides a stage for creative ideas to improve the situation. The information is then mapped to the International Classification of Nursing Practice and to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), providing the means to integrate the data into health information systems, with the nursing profession serving as the lead actor. The preliminary findings point at the primacy of contextual variables in determining both, population health outcomes as well as in the outcomes of health programs (including this project). 

BRANCH OUT: A FAITH-BASED PARTNERSHIP TO PROMOTE HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Presenters: Staci Young, Medical College of Wisconsin; Nancy Wynne, Word of Hope Ministries; Yvonne Greer, City of Milwaukee Health Department
The purpose of the BRANCH (Building a Rejoiceful Alliance of Neighbors for Change and Healing) Out partnership is to reduce health risk factors related to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes in African-American church-based communities in Milwaukee. Traditionally, churches have been deeply rooted cornerstones in African-American communities. Churches have a strong tradition of caring for others, providing fellowship, support and education. BRANCH Out builds on the existing relationship between health ministry workers and congregation members to address the social determinants of health. BRANCH Out has the following objectives: 1) develop and train Church Health Action Teams (CHATs) at participating churches; 2) develop, implement and disseminate cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk reduction education and prevention materials and resources; 3) develop and implement cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk reduction best practices at churches; and 4) sustain, evaluate, and expand the program.

DEVELOPING STRATEGIES: IMPROVING THE HEALTH OF LGBT PEOPLE OF COLOR
Presenters: Gary Hollander, Diverse and Resilient, Inc.; David Seal, Medical College of Wisconsin
Developing Strategies: Improving the Health of LGBT People of Color addressees the social determinants of Health through the focus, design, and implementation of the project. The focus is the intersection of race, gender, and sexual orientation as these apply to alcohol and drug use, tobacco use, mental health, and intentional and unintentional injury. The project design includes the active involvement at all levels of the target population, and it is being implemented by LGBT people of color.

EMPOWERING INDIVIDUALS TO IMPROVE THEIR HYPERTENSION CONTROL THROUGH PEER SUPPORT
Presenters: Jeff Whittle, Medical College of Wisconsin; Lee Guerrero, Veterans of Foreign Wars-Wisconsin
This is an intervention project. The goals of this project are: 1) to demonstrate that "lightly trained" community members can help a group of peers to improve their health status by teaching them self-management skills; and 2) to demonstrate that the supportive peer network that already exists within a veterans' organization can be mobilized to address health issues that affect its members. We will do so by improving blood pressure self-management and control among participating members of the VFW.