Encouraging dialogue!
Encouraging dialogue between researchers and the community!
10,000 Families (10KFS) is a study of family health in the US state of Minnesota. Participant families are welcome to include members of their family who live in urban and rural areas and even in neighboring states: Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The ideal makeup of the study is a true match with the demographic composition of the Minnesota community.
The original idea of building this family research study came when a group of experienced researchers from the School of Public Health and Medical School of the University of Minnesota got together to converse about the amazing but also challenging changes they were observing in their own community. This futurist group understood that all these changes would affect public health and healthcare and ultimately the health of all Minnesotans, even the nation as a whole.
Observing changes in families as a nucleus, instead of looking at a person as an isolated unit, became the goal for this group. Their passion for understanding what affects health and well-being in order to provide the community with health information, and to provide other health researchers with a platform for their own research, was what gave birth to 10KFS.
During the past 3 years, with the support of the Masonic Cancer Center, the 10KFS team has dedicated time to build an infrastructure to collect information and samples using new technologies, and to build an outreach branch to connect with the community. Now 10KFS is beginning to provide health information of significant interest to the community though the “Conversations about Health” series (in one hour chapters) that you can access in our 10KFS YouTube channel.
The new funding came from the office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Christopher J. Cramer, who said in the letter to our Principal Investigator Dr. Logan Spector:
We are pleased to inform you that your proposal titled “10,000 Families Study and Extension: Partnering with Minnesota communities for better health was selected for funding for the 2020 Research Infrastructure Investment Program.
He went on to say:
We received many very worthy proposals and the selection process was rigorous with each proposal being considered by several different reviewers. Yours was viewed by the panel as one of the best submitted. Our 10,000 Families team is delighted to receive the news as a testament of support from the University and a clear direction for our outreach efforts.
To read the full content of the Grant proposal, please click this link: Partnering with Minnesota Communities for better Health.
The strength of our project to build capacity for conducting research through application of public engagement principles comes also from our partnership with the University’s Extension Center for Family Development (ECFD). The University of Minnesota Extension has been a presence in the state for over 100 years! It was launched at the University in 1909 to bring Minnesota farmers and University researchers together for educational purposes. Over the years, Extension extended its educational outreach to include other topics of interest to women and families. Today, Extension works with rural, suburban, urban and tribal communities to share University science-based knowledge, expertise and training. Extension is in every county of Minnesota. The majority of Extension faculty and staff work in Greater Minnesota, aided by over 35,000 trained volunteers. Programs such as 4-H and Master Gardeners are two well-known community activities offered by Extension. Extension also works to strengthen Minnesota’s food and agriculture, protect Minnesota’s natural resources, and create healthier families through healthy eating and physical activity.
Extension’s goals for healthier Minnesota families through outreach and education and its extensive statewide network marry well with the goals of 10KFS, a research effort to better understand the lifestyle, environmental and genetic basis for health and illness in Minnesota families.
Trina Adler, Program Director, University of Minnesota Extension Health and Nutrition Programs Center for Family Development said:
Extension understands that connecting with communities is very important because If all communities are not represented in the 10,000 Families data, then decisions made based on the data will be skewed to benefit only the communities represented. This data will be used to understand the factors that influence both health and illness, and we want to make sure that the factors specific to Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPoC) and other marginalized communities are researched and understood. So, that's why I think it's important for us to help create a bridge because we have a golden opportunity with this project to positively influence the way the University of Minnesota works in community.
The Office for Public Engagement (OPE) at the University of Minnesota works to advance the commitment to publicly-engaged research, teaching, and outreach. As a supporting member of our partnership, OPE will facilitate conversations between 10KFS and ECFD so we can integrate our goals and clearly share them with the communities we plan to engage. ECFD and OPE will support our 10KFS research team in building skills for engaging with communities that ECFD currently works with.
Through this partnership, 10KFS hopes to build relationships with Minnesota communities towards a more inclusive study that not only brings information to its members, but also listens to community needs. In this process we want to make certain that 10KFS research gathers information that is relevant to the health concerns of all communities. This skill-building is crucial for researcher-community interactions that are mutually respectful and develop trust. We will use a series of dialogues with leaders from diverse communities, guided by ECFD. We will learn more about specific community health needs and assets and receive advice for how best to introduce 10KFS to the community. Eventually, we hope to bring 10KFS to the community by holding in-person health fairs in these communities, if pandemic conditions change for the better. In the meantime we will begin to meet communities through digital sources to start those conversations.
Through this experience and as one of the goals for this financial award, we hope to establish a new process to approach communities and model for how University researchers can successfully engage with those communities to improve health through community-informed and relevant research.
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More about the author:
Dr. DeAnn Lazovich - 10,000 Families Study Co-Investigator
