Lessons Learned from Rapid Community Needs Assessment in the African American Community During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: With the accelerated spread of COVID-19 and current shelter-in-place orders from many local governments, African American (AA) communities see to be more vulnerable as emerging data show disproportionate rates of infection and mortality among AAs across the nation. OBJECTIVES: In a sample of AA church members, to conduct a rapid community assessment during the early phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: Our community-based participatory research team, partnering with the local AA church community and including trained lay health workers, conducted the assessment via telephone and online. RESULTS: Although most participants reported high confidence regarding recommendations for physical distancing, more than 60% reported elevated anxiety and stress, and 10% indicated that they needed more information about staying healthy and safe during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Community-based participatory research with lay health workers is an effective method to implement a community needs assessment, problem-solve with community members, and build community health infrastructure during a public health crisis.

Application of project management tools and techniques to support nursing intervention research.

Nursing research involves much planning and attention to details, yet novice and seasoned nurse researchers often overlook the day-to-day operations required to conduct research studies. Project management is a set of iterative steps that can facilitate the process of conducting nursing research. In this paper we aim to provide an overview of project management and identify ways in which its specific principles and strategies may be applied to facilitate nursing research. Here we give an overview of our current longitudinal study using a Solomon four-group design and illustrate how we applied strategies and tools from the project management literature. In addition, we offer descriptions and illustrations of several other project management tools that could have been used in specific phases of this research project. We encourage nurse educators and researchers to familiarize themselves with the principles of project management and consider using them in future studies.