Reaching Out to the Community and to the World
 Partners in Health & Housing Prevention Research Center: Creating Healthy Partnerships
The Partners in Health and Housing Prevention Research Center (PHH-PRC) brings a community perspective to the health issues of residents of public housing in Boston. Funded by the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the PHH-PRC is an equitable partnership among four groups—Boston University School of Public Health, the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), the Boston Public Health Commission, and the Community Committee for Health Promotion—that is addressing the health needs of residents of public housing.
 “By and large, the population living in public housing is in poorer health than most people in Boston,” says BU epidemiologist and program director Robert Horsburgh. “The data suggest that health problems go hand-in-hand with poverty. In addition, public housing residents have less access to information about disease prevention and health promotion programs.”
The program’s main objectives are to identify health issues affecting people in public housing, to design research plans to collect data on these issues, and to implement strategies to address them. One of the strategies implemented by the partnership is to find leaders among the residents of the housing developments and to train them to become health advocates within their own communities.
The program, now in its fourth year, is fully funded by the CDC, which has apportioned nearly $30 million to 33 centers across the country. “The CDC has been very supportive and patient... Community-wide public health initiatives like these take time,” says Horsburgh.
Horsburgh has worked on public health issues since the early 1990s, first focusing on infectious diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, then moving on to address other disparities in health care among ethnic groups. “The methods have changed a lot since this kind of research began. Now we do research with community members, not on them,” he says.
 Specific initiatives of the PHH-PRC have targeted health issues from smoking cessation and dental health to domestic violence and motivating younger teenage girls to become more physically active. The group has found that community participation is critical. “We have swung away from the SWAT team approach where we came in like an army and never came back,” says Horsburgh. “Today we work with community members to develop objectives for their communities.”
Alex Muenze, a graduate of the School of Public Health, co-manages the recruiting and training of each year’s group of resident health advocates, or RHAs. RHAs are selected from applicants living in housing developments across the city. This is done in collaboration with Rachel Goodman, BHA’s Community Services Director and Greg Davis, BHA’s Family Services Program Manager. Each year 12 RHAs participate in a 10-week training course. Once certified, they receive stipends and are supervised by Davis and work on various community initiatives—from door-to-door outreach to manning tables at health fairs.
While Muenze says that much of the collaborative work has been fruitful, tracking the effectiveness of the program has, in some cases, been a challenge. “Long-term data is hard to gather because after our initial year of contact with the RHAs it can be hard to maintain contact. We may find that phone numbers are out of service or people have changed their address for a variety of personal and economic reasons,” she says.
Yet the work RHAs perform in their year appointments is the essence of grassroots community activism. Soamy Rodriguez, an RHA from Dorchester, said she was able to distribute bags filled with health materials to residents at a recent morning event. “We got a good response, probably a dozen people came out,” said Rodriguez.
 Another RHA, Crystal Zollarcoffer of the Gallivan Boulevard Development, said that she has had success in her neighborhood with a car seat safety program called “Buckle Up Boston!”—an alliance of hospitals, health centers, and public and private institutions led by the Boston Public Health Commission. Working as an intermediary with the program, Zollarcoffer says that she has helped many people in her community learn to properly install car seats and exchange smaller seats for larger ones.
Mirlande Joseph, an RHA from the Archdale Development in Roslindale, has carried her duties to the physical rejuvenation of the community. Last year, she renovated and reopened the Archdale Community Center that had been closed for some time. According to Joseph, who lobbied the City Council and BHA for assistance, the plan came to fruition after she became an RHA. “I know that I have a great support system here and can call on any of the other RHAs for help,” she says.
The climate of some housing developments can make grassroots work difficult. For example, Rosa Maldonado of South Boston said that some residents of her community view her work with skepticism and see her as an agent of BHA management or law enforcement. “Some people think that because I’m getting paid by BHA that I’m there to spy on people,” says Maldonado. “They don’t realize that I’m not there to judge, I’m there to provide information.” As a group, the RHAs agree that the best way to overcome such misperceptions is through consistency and pursuing their goals even after their RHA appointments are finished. “We’ve got to stay connected. Our work has to be maintained after we’re gone,” says Zollarcoffer.
Muenze says the effect of each initiative is small but cumulative. “We work within a realistic set of parameters... We do not expect miracles, but we believe that over time, the program will have a significant impact on the health of these communities.”
For more information about the Partners in Health and Housing Prevention Research Center, see www.bu.edu/dbin/sph/research_centers/prevention.php.
—by Jeremy Miller |
