Improving the health of populations through proven methods and new ideas.

Rochester Healthy Community Partnership (RHCP) is a community-academic partnership with a mission to promote health and well-being of the community through community-based participatory research (CBPR), education and civic engagement to achieve health equity.

Learn about our research model

Projects

Community and academic partners work together to plan, implement, and evaluate projects across a broad range of health topics.

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Publications

Community and academic partners co-author publications aimed at increasing understanding, awareness, and effective practices to improve health.

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Achievements

By working and learning together, we are able to accomplish more than we can on our own.

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Some of Our Partners

Thank you to our partners for all of their support. We invite you to join us in improving the health of our community.

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Most Recent Projects

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Projects

Through The Lens: Immigrant Perspectives on Health in Southeast Minnesota

Using Photovoice, we collaborated with Hispanic/Latino and Somali immigrant leaders to document their health-related assets and needs. The photographers’ words and photographs illustrate stories of discrimination, stress, and exclusion but also immense fortitude, resilience, and pride. Collectively, we want to ensure that immigrants have a voice in shaping the policies and decisions that impact our health and lives.

Developing a Technology-Assisted Intervention to Reduce Stress among Immigrant Women

In previous RHCP assessments, addressing mental health and stress has been identified as a health priority for research by community partners. Community partners acknowledge and research has shown that immigrant women face unique stressors associated with parenting, gender roles, language barriers, family separation, employment uncertainties, among others.

Pandemic Communications Toolkit

Crisis emergency risk communication (CERC) is the application of evidence-based principles to effectively communicate during emergencies. CERC framework is applied in public health in response to health emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage public participation in disease prevention and containment.

Stories for Change (S4C) La deteccíon temprana puede salvar vidas

Disparities exist in the screening rates for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White populations. Hispanic immigrants and/or individuals who have limited-English proficiency also experience additional vulnerabilities that contribute to this disparity. Culturally tailored interventions are needed to address breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer disparities among this population.

COVID-19 crisis and emergency risk communication (completed)

Racial minorities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Moreover, vulnerable populations and minorities are more likely to have communication gaps due to socioeconomic disadvantage, low health literacy, immigration status, and limited English proficiency, compounded by language and cultural discordance and mistrust of health institutions.

Social Network Analysis (completed)

In 2015, RHCP completed the Healthy Immigrant Families (HIF) project, during which community and academic partners co-created an intervention that was delivered to 44 Hispanic, Somali and Sudanese families in their homes by bilingual interventionists.

Closing the Gap (completed)

Patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) have lower rates of cancer screening than their English-proficient counterparts in the United States. Local clinic data in Rochester, Minnesota, mirrors the national trends, with wide disparity gaps for cancer screening among patients with LEP.

Stories for Change (S4C) Diabetes

Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, including immigrants and refugees, have higher rates of diabetes, and worse outcomes than the general population. Stories told by people who live successfully with diabetes may improve the health of people who are having difficulty living with diabetes.

Healthy Immigrant Community

While immigrant and refugee populations arrive to the United States healthier than the general population, these advantages disappear over time, partly due to adoption of unhealthy dietary behaviors.

Healthy Immigrant Families (completed)

Immigrants and refugees arrive to the United States healthier than the general population. But, the longer they live in the U.S., the more likely they are to approximate the cardiovascular risk profiles of the general population, including increased rates of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease.

Support RHCP

Rochester Healthy Community Partnership is built on the support of volunteers.

Learn about ways to get involved