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Our Community, Our Health
Description
Our Community, Our Health is a joint program between Washington University (WU) and Saint Louis University (SLU) to disseminate relevant and culturally appropriate health information and actively engage the St. Louis community in partnerships to help address local health disparities.
Although the health care available to the St. Louis region is among the best in the world, persistent — and profound — gaps in health status exist in parts of St. Louis. Death rates from diabetes and cancer are 30% higher in some areas and there is a 15-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and most underserved areas. WU and SLU recognize the need to collectively address these disparities and consider improving the relevance and conduct of community-based research to be key strategies in eliminating disparities. Our Community, Our Health will serve as a forum to deliver relevant health information stemming from research and will facilitate the development and strengthening of community-academic partnerships through co-learning workshops/initiatives to increase, improve, and coordinate community engagement in research.
Goals
- Establish a culturally-centered conference series that focuses on dissemination of relevant health information
- Develop community-academic partnerships to conduct community-based research to address health disparities
- Align academic research priorities with health priorities identified by the community
Partners
WU and SLU are the primary academic institutions; however, health professionals and researchers from any local or regional institution can be partners in the program. All community based organizations with a health focus or health interest are invited to become a partner. Please see our
organizational model
for more information about the role of partners.
Conference Series
The inaugural Our Community, Our Health conference will be held on Thursday, October 29, 2009 from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. “Community-Academic Partnerships to Reduce Health Disparities in St. Louis” will focus on local health disparities concerns, the need to improve dissemination of health information, and the importance of community and academic partnerships to promote health and translate research into practice. Please see the attached flier for agenda details.
Supporters
Our Community, Our Health is just one of the academic institutions' efforts to address health disparities and engate the community. Our Community, Our Health is supported by:
Washington University:
Saint Louis University: