Improving and Enhancing Michigan Communities with Knowledge

Recently Funded MICHR CE Promoting Academic and Community Engagement (PACE) Dissemination Projects

MICHR continues to champion community-engaged research that directly benefits communities through practical, impactful dissemination of research findings. MICHR is part of a national, collaborative consortium focused on bringing more treatments to all patients more quickly by advancing clinical and translational science (CTS). The field of CTS aims to build an evidence base of scientific and operational approaches that improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of translational research across a range of diseases and conditions.

This July, the third round of PACE Dissemination funds awarded funding to six innovative projects, underscoring MICHR’s commitment to making scholarly work accessible and actionable for diverse populations. Here’s a snapshot of the recently funded projects:

• Non-Emergency Medical Transportation in Rural Michigan (Central Michigan University Rural Health Equity Institute with Rural Michigan Action Alliance – Iosco County, MI)
  This program proposes to stimulate the assessment and innovation of deficiencies in Medicaid Non-Emergency Transportation (NEMT) as well as to establish a basis for expansion and innovation of medical transportation resources for vulnerable populations in rural Michigan by disseminating the results of research completed by The Rural Health Group, working with the Iosco County Commission on Aging and the Michigan Region 9 Area Agency on Aging. This project will engage stakeholders in fully understanding the problems with deficient rural NEMT and begin a dialogue to address the need for innovation and system change.

• Elevating Michigan Latino Families’ Lived Experience of Food Insecurity (University of Michigan School of Public Health with Latina Parent Leadership Board – Southwest Detroit, MI)
  The objective of the ‘Feeding MI Families’ project is to elevate Michigan families’ lived experience of food insecurity and create family-driven recommendations for improved food access and food assistance across the state. The academic and community partners, Latino Parent Leadership Boards, will work together to create a report of research results in English and Spanish illustrating the knowledge gained from Latino families, including stories and pictures of participating families.
• Disseminating Research Findings to Improve Parenting in the Flint Community (Michigan State University with Mothers of Joy Institute for Parenting and Family Wellness – Flint, MI)
  Partnering with a local community agency dedicated to parenting and family wellness, this initiative will share the results of research that developed an intervention to increase participant mothers’ focus on specific future relationship goals they have for their children. Findings suggested that this intervention decreased harsh parenting and had a positive impact on the parent-child relationship. The partners will focus on disseminating these findings and teaching parents these techniques as part of a Flint parenting summit, co-led by the academic-community study leads.
• Family Support for Diabetes Health Action (University of Michigan School of Public Health and University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine Caring for Complex Chronic Conditions Research Center with CHASS Center – Detroit, MI)
  This project focuses on disseminating findings of a Community-Based Participatory Research trial comparing two Community Health Worker-led diabetes self-management education/support interventions at a Detroit FQHC. Results showed clinically significant improvements in diabetes-related health outcomes when family/friend supporters were involved in patient interventions. The study results will be shared with participants, FQHC clinic staff, and the broader community via community events and bilingual print and media materials in multiple venues.
• Helping Communities Build a Health Equity Report Card to Address Substance Use Disorders (Michigan State University College of Human Medicine with Odyssey Village – Port Huron, MI)
  This community-academic research partnership team completed a grant that supported the development of a substance use disorder (SUD) Health Equity Report Card (HERD) to assess outcome inequities and create a landscape analysis of county-wide locations of all existing substance use recovery treatment services. The MICHR PACE funding will support the dissemination of study findings and promote these tools through educational training. Funds will also support the development of training for SUD treatment providers. Attendees of this free training will walk away with practical tools to conduct a lay-person-friendly gap analysis that integrates a location-based scoring system (report card) with a landscape analysis of gaps in available SUD services within their county.

These projects highlight MICHR’s dedication to fostering robust community partnerships and making scholarly work accessible and relevant to the public and communities of interest across the state of Michigan.

For more information on these projects or to get involved, please visit the MICHR Community Engagement webpage or contact the MICHR Community Engagement team: [email protected].