Lauren Heberle, Ph.D.

Park Hill Corridor Stories: Interactive Website

In Louisville, KY, the Park Hill Corridor is an area undergoing dynamic change.  A very diverse set of community members and stakeholders have embarked upon a process of initiating the revitalization of this former industrial corridor that is located in the physical heart of the city.  This project will develop an interactive website about the revitalization of the Park Hill Corridor in Louisville, KY.  This website will house documentary film segments, oral histories and textual content that will be organized in chapter links.  The content will document the history of the Park Hill Corridor as told by residents, business owners, religious leaders, city officials, community organizational leaders, service providers, and others connected to the area.  These stories will be told in the context of the unfolding revitalization efforts that are currently under process in the corridor.  The funding request will cover the initial set of fimed qualitative interviews we need to get the research project off the ground.

The website content and analysis will be developed by documentary filmmaker Walter Brock and sociologist Lauren Heberle in collaboration with community stakeholders and organizations.  The structure of the website will also include ways for community members, organizations, and stakeholders to interact, contribute text, written stories in their own words, self-made video, and responses to content.  The website we intend to create will be interactive and will evolve over time as the story telling and analysis of the revitalization efforts proceeds.  We intend for this website to serve as an educational tool for a broad audience and as a resource for capacity building for Park Hill community organizations.  Maintaining it as a live interactive site where community members can post their own written stories and video alongside the formal documentary material will make this a unique interactive resource for citizens wishing to participate in the documentation of their own history.  The content and material we collect for the website has the potential to be used for a future full length documentary as well as data to be analyzed for publication in academic journal articles.

Irene Litvan, M.D.

Development of a questionnaire to study barriers to healthcare access and impediments to participation in clinical research in residents for West Louisville

Propose to develop a questionnaire to study the social, economic, geographic and cultural challenges that residents of West Louisville experience related to healthcare access and participation in medical research.  This is a community based project in which, along with community partners, will conduct a number of structured focus groups with (1) residents of the area, (2) providers of healthcare services in the community, (3) community leaders.  From the results of the focus groups, will develop a questionnaire that will be tested in Family Health Centers and other community settings.

The final version of the questionnaire will become one of the instruments for the Louisville Underserved Population Neurological Assessment (LUNA) project that will be submitted to the NIH for R01 funding.  In the LUNA project, we will determine the prevalence of Parkinson's disease (PD) and Essential tremor (ET) for African Americans, non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics in Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) of Louisville Metro and will determine barriers to healthcare access and participation in medical research.

Barbara Stetson, Ph.D.

Assessment of Psychosocial and community-environmental aspects of diabetes awareness, self-care behaviors and health in African-American men in Louisville's West End.  An extension of the Louiville Men's Health Initiative (AMEN) program.

This project is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between Investigators in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) at the University of Louisville with expertise in Health Psychology and Chronic Disease Risk in Underserved Individuals (Dr. Stetson) and African American Community Well-being and Distress (Dr. Chapman) and Partners from the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness Men's Health Initiative African American Male Empowerment Network (AMEN) program (Dr. Jett, Ms. Hudson and Health Department Director Dr. Troutman).  Louisville AMEN is a pilot initiative that replicates a successful program developed in Atlanta, which aims to reduce cardiovascular risk in African American men via group support sessions emphasizing stress reduction, health and personal perceptions and prevention.  The proposed collaborative project aims to extend the reach of Louisville AMEN to encompass diabetes, which is a major public health epidemic with particularly high rates among African American men.  The Project aims to conduct structured assessments and referrals, by evaluating psychosocial, cultural and community -environmental aspects of diabetes awareness, self-care behaviors and health, using well-validated measures.  Our experience indicates that nearly all participants will have family or friends with diabetes, many will have personal risk factors or will be living with diabetes.  Assessments will be conducted in the AMEN group locations by Psychology Doctoral Students under the supervision of Drs. Stetson and Chapman.  Assessments will tap culturally relevant aspects of knowledge, personal views and preferences regarding seeking  professional generalist or specialty care, and community, family and peer support for diabetes risk factors and diabetes.  Questions will address family history, physical symptoms, health indicators and psychological distress.  In addition, environmental factors influencing health related attitudes, risks and outcomes will be assessed, including exposure to violence and neighborhood social environment and living conditions.  Assessments will be used for 3 purposes 1. to characterize individual and neighborhood related views as they pertain to health behaviors and diabetes, 2. to provide screenings for  psychosocial, health care and environmental risk and 3. provide appropriate community referrals and brief services.  Individuals endorsing high levels of distress, health care needs or environmental risk will be contacted and offered a second screening to determine optimal care needs.  Those with positive secondary screenings amendable to brief behavioral health care will be referred for brief services by psychology doctoral students at Health Dept. sites under the supervision of Dr. Stetson.  Individuals with medical and longer term mental health needs will be offered referrals to appropriate community agencies.  Screen levels, referrals and presentation to referral sites will be tracked.  Thus, characteristics of individual and neighborhood variables related to understanding diabetes risk and management will be assessed and individualized care and referrals conducted and tracked.  UofL Doctoral trainees will receive education and training in working in the Signature Partnership resides.  Collaborators aim to use project data to lay a foundation for future collaborative projects and extramural grant propsals intervention programs to promote preventive health practices, clincal outreach and reduce diabetes risk factors and complications in African American men.