Medical College of Wisconsin
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Community Engagement

Cardiovascular Focus (Cycle 1): Awarded Project

The awarded project supports promising cardiovascular-focused research in the Milwaukee area, demonstrates clear relevance and importance to the communities involved in the project, encourages sustainable, authentic community-academic partnerships, and seeks to advance understanding about how community engagement can be done in complex research settings. The award is a collaborative effort of the MCW Community Engagement Core and the MCW Cardiovascular Center and is funded by the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Research and Education Program, a component of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment at MCW. 

Awarded Projects

Explore the awarded projects for this seed grant opportunity. 
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Explore the awarded projects for this seed grant opportunity.

The Harambee-Hoja partnership: A park-based intervention to increase physical activity in under-resourced communities

Project Start Date: January 1, 2018

Project End Date: June 30, 2019

Award Amount: $50,000

Goal Statement: This project will assess the feasibility of a community-engaged research approach to develop and test a park-based physical activity intervention in Milwaukee’s 53212 zip code. This community is primarily African-American, a population known to have a disproportionate rate of cardiovascular disease. The park has been identified as an underutilized resource in this community. The short-term goal is to use the park to pilot a community informed physical activity intervention. The long-term goal is to strengthen community resources to sustain park-based, outcomes driven, physical activity programs in a high-risk population to narrow cardiovascular health disparities.

Co-Principal Investigators:

  • Matthew Durand, PhD (Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation)
  • Una Van Duvall (Development Director, HeartLove Place)

Additional partners:

  • Moriah Iverson, MS (Program Manager, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation)
  • Paul Kjelland (co-Director, ReciproCITY)
  • Fidel Verdin (co-Executive Director, TRUE Skool)