| 1. Ameliorating negative stereotypes regarding the relationship between community and academic partners. |
Recruit staff members with diverse and extensive experience working in the Asian American community. Educating staff and faculty that each partner—community members, advocates, academics, or health care professionals—contribute unique and important experiences and skills. Encourage staff, interns, and faculty to attend events, lectures, or trainings that promote an understanding of Asian American issues.
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Ability to draw on prior expertise and networks of staff. Ensures respect and understanding of each of the players in partnership. Ensures a contextualized understanding of Asian American health disparities.
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CSAAH has 8 full-time staff representing diverse educational backgrounds and four different Asian ethnic backgrounds. In 2005, CSAAH established the Asian American Student Summer Seminar Series, which provided a series of 7 lectures on topics including Overview of Asian American Health Status and Research Gaps; Assessing Community Health Needs and Building Health Coalitions; Community Outreach; Health Access Issues for Asian Immigrants; Public/Private Partnerships. CSAAH has offered several half-day trainings on CBPR for graduate students, faculty, and community partners. CSAAH staff are members of NYU’s Dean’s Council on Institutional Diversity. The council led to the creation of a new Institute on Community Health and Research. Members of CSAAH’s Vietnamese Community Health Initiative and the Kalusugan Coalition have engaged in strategic planning and retreats to emphasize and understand each member’s unique skills.
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| 2. Establishing equity with partners on development, implementation, and evaluation of new projects. |
Ensure partners have an equal role in developing the grant, including establishing the research priorities and methodologies. CSAAH researchers and partners negotiate fair distributions of research funds depending on their roles and responsibilities. Community partners received education and training on grant writing, budgeting, and research design.
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Partners have buy-in to the research project from the beginning Promotes sense of respect for each partners time, role, and responsibility. Allows partners to more confidently and accurately estimate the funding they need to implement research activities.
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In preparation for the submission of Project AsPIRE, a community health worker intervention for the Filipino community, staff held several group meetings with key community partners to discuss the program design and logistics of grant submission. Joint decisions regarding fund distribution were made prior to the submission of the grant. CSAAH worked with the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center to increase their subcontract amount to more effectively implement the Health Disparities Research Training Program.
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| 3. Formalizing relationships with CBOs. |
Create letters of support for new grants that delineate the partners’ roles, responsibilities, and activities to ensure that these items are not mere token gestures of community support. Create MOUs outlining the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of both the academic and the community partner Engage in 1-on-1 meetings to clarify roles and responsibilities of each partner.
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Demonstrates mutual understanding, respect, and reciprocity between CSAAH and its community partner. Clearly establishes the guidelines of the relationship between partners. For projects not associated with a particular grant or funding mechanism, discussions help each partner to understand the context of project and each partners’ unique strengths and potential contributions.
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For Project AsPIRE, the project director and key staff met with each community and academic partner to jointly develop MOUs that outline their respective roles in the project. CSAAH worked with the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center (CBWCHC) to implement a Health Disparities Research Training Program. An MOU was created between CSSAH and CBWCHC to clarify the roles of each partner in implementing the program and to outline the distribution of funds. The Vietnamese Community Health Initiative worked with CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities to implement a health needs assessment survey in the Southeast Asian community in the Bronx. A series of meetings were held to clarify roles and responsibilities of each partner.
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