Twenty Years of Leading the Way among Cohort Studies in Community-Driven Outreach and Engagement: Jackson State University/Jackson Heart Study.

BACKGROUND: History has recorded the tremendous concerns and apprehension expressed by African Americans about participating in research studies. This review enumerates the collaborative techniques that were utilized by the Jackson State University (JSU) Jackson Heart Study (JHS) community-focused team to facilitate recruitment and retention of the JHS cohort and to implement health education and health promotion in the JHS communities. METHODS: This review describes the evolution of the JSU JHS community initiatives, an innovative community-driven operation, during the period 1999-2018. RESULTS: JSU JHS community-focused investigators published approximately 20 manuscripts, including community-led research and publications with community lead authors and co-authors, research and publications in collaboration with other JHS staff, through other JSU-funded projects. The JSU JHS community-focused unit also initiated the JHS Community Training Activities, developed the Community Health Advisory Network (CHAN), and trained and certified 137 Community Health Advisors. In addition, the JSU JHS community-focused unit developed the Collaborative Community Science Model (CCSM) that symbolized its approach to community engagement and outreach, and a Trust Scale for ascertaining African Americans' willingness to engage in biomedical research collaborations. CONCLUSION: This review offers educators, public health professionals, and research investigators a useful starting point for the development, selection, or improvement of techniques to motivate, inspire, and engage community residents in a community-academia partnership that yielded maximum benefits in the areas of health education, health promotion and interventions, and biomedical research. Substantial, meaningful community engagement is possible when prioritizing elimination of health disparities and long-term improvement in health care access in the target populations.

Improving functional ability in the elderly via the Spencer technique, an osteopathic manipulative treatment: a randomized, controlled trial.

Twenty-nine elderly patients with preexisting shoulder problems voluntarily enrolled as subjects in this study, which was undertaken to determine the efficacy of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in an elderly population to increase functional independence, increase range of motion (ROM) of the shoulder, and decrease pain associated with common shoulder problems. Each subject had chronic pain, decreased ROM, and/or decreased functional ability in the shoulder before entering the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a treatment (OMT) group or a control group for 14 weeks. Over the course of treatment, both groups had significantly increased ROM (P < .01) and decreased perceived pain (P < .01). All subjects continued on their preexisting course of therapy for any concurrent medical problems. After treatment, those subjects who had received OMT demonstrated continued improvement in their ROM, while ROM in the placebo group decreased.