Our community health projects are global in scope. They range from ethics collaborations in Russia to clinical development in Côte d’Ivoire to wireless technology in inner-city Houston. All of our projects share a single focus, however, on community-based participatory research. We believe that this is the only way to achieve sustainable change.

Community-based participatory research enhances the relevance and validity of health research by explicitly accounting for the social, cultural, and economic conditions of the community. It ensures that communities share in the selection and design of research projects, gain skills during the research process, share in the reporting process, and are in a position to use the results for their future health care planning.

The Center’s applied research projects are collaborative products. Our partnerships include the complementary skills of academics, physicians, community members, government agencies, and other relevant players. Ongoing projects include:

Clinical development in Sub-Saharan West Africa. Dr. Dacso serves as a consultant to the United Methodist Church on its planned Center for Research and Demonstration for Health Improvement in Africa, to be located in Dabou, Côte d’Ivoire.

Health management in a rural underserved community. The Center is working with the community of Marion County, Texas, to identify collaborative research projects in chronic disease management.

The Houston Community Health Worker Survey. In the summer of 2007, Center research fellows completed a comprehensive evaluation of the state of the community health worker field in Houston.

Biomedical research ethics. Dr. Susan Miller and co-principal investigator Boris G. Yudin, PhD, have collaborated for years on the theory, practice, and study of cross-cultural ethics in biomedical research. Dr. Yudin is Chairman of Philosophy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and is Russia’s Representative to the Steering Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe.

Health sensing and wireless networks. The Center is bringing accessible wireless health technology to Houston’s underserved through a partnership with Rice University and the nonprofit Technology for All. This project is partially supported by grants from the National Science Foundation.