Jonathan Delman is the lead author on an article that describes barriers and facilitators to initiating a meaningful partnership with disenfranchised groups

          Jonathan Delman, an iSPARC researcher, is the lead author of “Barriers and Facilitators to Community-Based Participatory Mental Health Care Research for Racial and Ethnic Minorities”, which appears in the March 2019 issue of Health Affairs. People with serious mental health conditions, particularly members of racial and ethnic minority groups, are rarely included in prioritizing research topics or developing the tools and measures important for improving their care. Community-based participatory research holds promise toward reducing mental health disparities. However, initiating research partnerships with community stakeholders is challenging and does not always lead to sustainable community health improvements. Using lessons learned from a project to improve understanding of patients’ preferences and discrimination in depression and diabetes treatment, the authors describe barriers and facilitators to initiating a meaningful partnership with disenfranchised groups.

This research was supported by a grant to the Health Equity Research Lab at the Cambridge Health Alliance from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Grant No. ME-1507-31469; principal investigator: Benjamin Lê Cook).

Find the abstract and article here.

Learn more about iSPARC’s participatory action research efforts here.