Seattle Partners For Healthy Communities

Seattle Partners for Healthy Communities (Seattle Partners) was established in 1995 as a CDC-funded Urban Research Center. We are a multidisciplinary collaboration of community agencies, community activists, public health professionals, academics, and health providers whose mission is to improve the health of urban, marginalized Seattle communities by conducting community-based collaborative research. The goal of our research was to identify promising approaches through which communities and professionals can address the social determinants of health and thereby prevent disease and promote healthy behaviors and environments.

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• Projects
• Mission
• Goals
• Community Collaboration Principles
• Governance and Structure
• Board Officers and Staff
• Publications

Seattle Partners Mission

Seattle Partners works to improve the health and quality of life of urban, disadvantaged Seattle communities by promoting activities which are effective in preventing disease, promoting healthy behaviors and environments, and influencing the underlying social factors that affect health such as education, income, housing and economic development.

Seattle Partners Goals

• To increase understanding of how socioeconomic factors determine health status and identify opportunities for preventive interventions
• To evaluate the effectiveness of strategies which may improve urban health status and reduce economic and racial inequities in health
• To actively collaborate with community members in designing and evaluating these strategies
• To encourage policy-makers to use effectiveness data in their decision-making process

Community Collaboration Principles

Community collaboration is an essential element of the Center’s activities. The Center has adopted the following principles to guide this collaboration:

• Community involved in plans and development from the beginning
• Community partners have real influence on Center direction and activities
• Community involved with specific projects in objectives and selection, implementation and evaluation
• The values, perspectives, contributions and confidentiality of everyone in the community are respected
• Research process and outcomes will serve the community by sustaining useful projects, producing long-term benefit for the community, and developing community capacity (training and jobs)

To fully implement these principles, Seattle Partners has taken two initial steps: conducting a community interview process and establishing a community board that incorporates recommendations from community interviews.

Governance and Structure

The structure of the Seattle Partners included a Community Board and a Technical Advisory Group.

The Community Board was composed of an inclusive group identified initially through community interviews. The composition of the Board is a majority of community members with technical advisor representation. Roles of the Board include:

• Determine priority areas for Seattle Partners activities & funding
• Review and approve budgets
• Review and approve grant proposals
• Determine projects for board discretionary funds
• Participate in hiring and approve hiring decisions
• Involvement in all aspects of projects as a group and as individuals on project-specific advisory committees
• Selection of important interventions for evaluation
• Design of project and evaluation strategy
• Participation in projects as interested
• Review interpretation of evaluation findings
• Dissemination of project results

A Technical Advisory Group (TAG) was organized and collaborators involved are the University of Washington Schools of Public Health, Nursing and Social Work, the Washington State Department of Health and Group Health Cooperative. The TAG identified two initial areas of focus:

• To review evaluation methodology and approaches and develop common terminology across disciplines
• To specifically study community participation research and receive training for working with community members in a sensitive and respectful manner.

Seattle Partners Board Officers and Staff

Community Board Officers

• Jim Schier, Chair
• Gary Tang, Vice Chair
• Molly Shaw, Secretary

Public Health - Seattle & King County

• Jim Krieger, MD, MPH -- Principal Investigator/Co-Director
• Sandy Ciske, MN, RN -- Co-Director
• Kirsten Senturia, PhD -- Staff Anthropologist/DV Project
• Marianne Sullivan, MPH -- CRC Coordinator/DV Project
• Stella Gran-O’Donnell, MSW, MPH -- PAAC/CRC Project
• Linda Graybird -- Clerical Support

University of Washington:

• Allen Cheadle, PhD, School of Public Health -- Community Research Center
• Noel Chrisman, PhD, MPH, School of Nursing -- Process Evaluation/Rainier Beach
• Sharyne Shiu-Thornton, PhD, School of Public Health -- Domestic Violence Project

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Donna Higgins, PhD -- Seattle Research Scientist

The Board of Seattle Partners, after carefully reviewing options for sustaining our work, has decided to end the Urban Research Center phase of our work and Board structure. We will complete a report of accomplishments and continue involvement in the Association of Schools of Public Health/CDC project "Examining Community-Institutional Partnerships for Prevention Research".

Partners will look for ongoing opportunities to participate in and advance community based participatory research and projects that address social determinants of health that build on our work as funding is available and maintain a network to convene interested partners. We will prioritize funding opportunities for applied projects that support community partners and advance best practices using capacity building approaches such as the CRC model. Finally, we are having a celebration of our work with active partners at the end of 2004.

Seattle Partners Publications

Published:

Krieger J, Song L, Takaro T, Stout J. Asthma and the Home Environment of Low-Income, Urban Children: Preliminary findings from the Seattle-King County Healthy Homes Project. Journal of Urban Health, January 2000.

Krieger J, Castorina J, Walls M, Weaver M, Ciske S. Increasing Influenza and Pneumococcal Immunization Rates: A randomized controlled study of a senior center-based intervention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol 18, no. 2, February 2000.

Kone A, Sullivan M, Senturia K, Chrisman N, Ciske S, and Krieger J. Improving Collaboration Between Researchers and Communities. Public Health Reports, Vol 115, Nos 2 &3, March/April & May/June, 2000.

Solet D, Krieger J, Stout J. Lui,L. Childhood Asthma Hospitalizations in King County, 1987 – 1998. MMWR, 10/20/00 /49 (41); 929-933.

Krieger, J, Ciske, S. The Community as a Full Partner in Public Health Initiatives. Washington Public Health Vol 17, Fall, 2000.

Sullivan M, Kone A, Senturia K, Chrisman N, Ciske S, and Krieger J. Researcher and Researched-Community Perspectives: Toward Bridging the Gap. Health Education and Behavior, Vol 28:130-149, April 2001 .

Weaver M, Krieger J, Castorina J, Walls M, Ciske S, "Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of a Combined Campaign for Influenza and Pneumococcal Vaccines." Archives of Internal Medicine Vol. 161 no. 1: 111-120, January, 2001.

Eisinger A, Senturia K. Doing community-driven research: a description of Seattle Partners for Healthy Communities. Journal of Urban Health Research Vol 78, No. 3, September 2001.

Chrisman, N. Senturia, K. Tang, G. Gheisar, B. Qualitative Evaluation of Urban Community Work: A Preliminary View, Health Education and Behavior Vol 29, April, 2002.

Krieger J, Takaro TK, Allen C, Song L, Weaver M, Chai S, Dickey P. The Seattle-King County Healthy Homes Project: implementation of a comprehensive approach to improving environmental quality for low-income children with asthma. Accepted for the monograph Using Community-based Participatory Research to Advance Environmental Justice, Environmental Health Perspectives Vol 110, Suppl 2, April, 2002.

Krieger J, Higgins D. Housing and Health: Time Again for Public Health Action. American Journal of Public Health Vol 92: 758-768, May 2002

Schulz A, Krieger J, Galea S. Addressing social determinants of health: community-based participatory approaches to research and practice. Health Education and Behavior Vol 29: 287 – 296, June, 2002.

Krieger JW, Allen C, Cheadle A, Ciske S, Schier J, Senturia K, Sullivan M. Using community-based participatory research to address social determinants of health: lessons learned from Seattle Partners for Healthy Communities. Health Education and Behavior Vol 29: 361 –382, June, 2002.

Cheadle A, Sullivan M, Krieger J, Ciske S, Shaw M, Schier J, Eisinger A. Using a participatory approach to provide assistance to community-based organizations: The Seattle Partners Community Research Center. Health Education and Behavior Vol 29: 383 –394, June, 2002.

Sullivan M, Chao S, Allen C, Kone A, Pierre-Louis M, Krieger J. Community/Researcher Partnerships - Perspectives from the Field in Minkler, M and Wallerstein, N. Community Based Participatory Research for Health. San Francisco, CA., December, 2002.

Metzler M, Higgins D, Beeker C, Freudenberg N, Lantz P, Senturia K, Eisinger A, Viruell-Fuentes E, Gheisar B, Palermo A, Softley D. Addressing Urban Health in Detroit, New York, and Seattle Through Community-based Participatory Research Partnerships. American Journal of Public Health , May, 2003.

Takaro T, Krieger JW, Song L, Beaudet N. Effect of environmental interventions to reduce exposure to asthma triggers in homes of low-income children in Seattle. Exp. Anal. Env. Epid. 14: Suppl 1:S133-43, 2004.

Accepted manuscripts:

Bornstein DR, Fawcett J, Sullivan, M, Senturia KD, Shiu-Thornton, S. Understanding the Experiences of Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Survivors of Domestic Violence: A Qualitative Study. Journal of Homosexuality (in press).

Chiun-Fang C, Weaver MW, Bell MA, Krieger JW. Developing a Multi-attribute Pediatric Asthma Health Outcome Measure. (accepted for publication, 2004).

Krieger JW, Song L, Takaro T. The Seattle-King County Healthy Homes Project: A Randomized, Controlled Trial of a Community Health Worker Intervention to Decrease Exposure to Indoor Asthma Triggers among Low-income Children. (Accepted for Publication, American Journal of Public Health, anticipated for 2/05 issue).

Bhatia R, Krieger J, Gentling G, Suozzi K. Finding our voice: imagining a public health practice to challenge social inequality. (Accepted for publication, American Journal of Public Health, March 2005).

Horsley K, Ciske S. From Neurons to Neighborhoods: Partnering to Promote Policies Based on the Science of Early Childhood Development (Accepted for publication, American Journal of Public Health, March, 2005).

Bhuyan R, Senturia K. Introduction to the Special Issue: Understanding Domestic Violence Resource Utilization and Survivor Solutions Among Ethnic Minority and LGBT Women. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).

Sullivan M, Bhuyan R, Senturia K, Shiu-Thornton S, Ciske S. Participatory Action Research in Practice: A Case Study in Addressing Domestic Violence in Nine Cultural Communities. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).

Bhuyan R, Mell M, Senturia K, Sullivan M, Shiu-Thornton S. “Women Must Endure According to Their Karma”: Cambodian Immigrant Women Talk About Domestic Violence. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).

Sullivan M, Negash T, Senturia K, Shiu-Thornton S, Giday B. “For us it is Like Living in the Dark”: Ethiopian Women’s Experiences with Domestic Violence. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).

Crandall M, Senturia K, Shiu-Thornton S, Sullivan M. “No Way Out”: Russian-speaking Women’s Experiences with Domestic Violence. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).

Shiu-Thornton S, Senturia K, Sullivan M. “Like a Bird in a Cage”: Vietnamese Women Survivors Talk About Domestic Violence. (Accepted for publication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence).