Rochester immigrants' health improved through community-involved research, study says
May 6, 2025
Participants in a community-based research project, which focused on health promotion through diet and exercise, came away with health improvements, according to the project's preliminary results.
ROCHESTER — A community-involved research project improved the cardiovascular health of the Rochester immigrants who participated in it, researchers with the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership found.
Nearly 500 people in Rochester's Somali and Hispanic immigrant communities participated in the Healthy Immigrant Community study, learning about healthy eating and exercise habits and sharing that information with others. View a PDF of the article here.
Community support can make you healthier - and can help you lose weight, too
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says children and adults have gained weight during the pandemic, stressing that obesity worsens COVID-19 outcomes. However, a recent Mayo Clinic community-based pilot study suggests that weight gain can be prevented and perhaps reversed — even during a pandemic — with the help and support of a person's community.
February 24, 2022
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people's lives were disrupted, and isolation increased. And with that isolation came weight gain.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says children and adults have gained weight during the pandemic, stressing that obesity worsens COVID-19 outcomes. However, a recent Mayo Clinic community-based pilot study suggests that weight gain can be prevented and perhaps reversed — even during a pandemic — with the help and support of a person's community.
The pilot study examined the feasibility and acceptability of a 12-week behavioral program for weight loss and improved cardiovascular health. It was designed to be used with Somali and Hispanic immigrants living in Southeast Minnesota. The peer-led intervention was delivered by community-based "health promoters."
Mayo's C2Dream Team: Seeking insights into racism and heart health
Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota recently announced the launch of the Center for Chronic Disease Reduction and Equity Promotion Across Minnesota, also known as C2DREAM. The new research center aims to address the effects of racism on heart health.
December 29, 2021
Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota recently announced the launch of the Center for Chronic Disease Reduction and Equity Promotion Across Minnesota, also known as C2DREAM. The new research center aims to address the effects of racism on heart health.
The center will collaborate with academic researchers, community health organizations and health care leaders from around Minnesota, including researchers from across Mayo Clinic. The research is funded by a P50 grant awarded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
"C2DREAM draws on expertise from across our Midwest enterprise to be part of this important work. In addition, it draws on long-standing community research partnerships cultivated by Mayo Clinic," says Christi Patten, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic behavioral health researcher and C2DREAM principal investigator.
Weight loss programs tailored to the needs of Somali and Latino immigrants show success, a Mayo Clinic study finds. Participants lost weight during COVID while many other Americans gained weight
Somali and Latino immigrants lost weight when they worked together in culturally specific groups and received coaching by someone from their community. The Mayo Clinic’s pilot study was such a success it’s being replicated on a larger scale.
April 21, 2022
Somali and Latino immigrants lost weight when they worked together in culturally specific groups and received coaching by someone from their community. The Mayo Clinic’s pilot study was such a success it’s being replicated on a larger scale.
“It was so successful because most people gained weight during the pandemic; these were such impressive results,” said lead author Dr. Mark Wieland, a Mayo Clinic physician who focuses his research on community-based strategies to promote health equity. “If this is successful in a more rigorous study, then we can start evidence-based intervention.”
The participants lost an average of 2 percent of their body weight over 12 weeks. Also surprising and impressive, the researchers said, is that no one dropped out despite the fact that the pandemic hit just after the 39 participants started meeting in small groups. The pilot study had been designed and launched pre-pandemic, so researchers assumed the study would pause in the spring of 2020 along with the rest of life.
Luz Molina, who helped lead the Latino groups, remembered the reaction of the study’s principal investigators. “When COVID hit, they just said, ‘So should we stop here?’ ” she said. “And I was like, ‘No, no; they want to continue! They are very motivated, so we have to do something.’ ”
Mayo Clinic and Rochester Healthy Community Partnership develop playbook for COVID-19 health equity
The task force actually made a difference in messaging the necessary information to affected communities but also in talking to Mayo Clinic by allowing Mayo Clinic to establish a site where they didn't have to go through an appointment with the doctor," says Rochester Healthy Community Partnership member Ahmed Osman.
Other Rochester Community Partnership members including Miriam Goodson believe more needs to be done to help people.
February 21, 2022
ROCHESTER, Minn.- A recently published study by 'Public Health Reports' found immigrants and refugees have been impacted more by the pandemic than other groups. Now community leaders are working together to address the issue.
The plan was developed by Rochester Healthy Community Partnership and Mayo Clinic. According to Mayo Clinic, immigrant and refugee communities in Rochester experience higher rates of death and infection.
Since January of 2020, members of Rochester Community Health Partnership have been meeting to make sure immigrants and refugee communities get the health equity they need. They established a task force with Mayo Clinic to develop strategies to fight the pandemic.
The plan includes addressing language and communication gaps and making sure there is equal access to health resources.
The task force actually made a difference in messaging the necessary information to affected communities but also in talking to Mayo Clinic by allowing Mayo Clinic to establish a site where they didn't have to go through an appointment with the doctor," says Rochester Healthy Community Partnership member Ahmed Osman.
Other Rochester Community Partnership members including Miriam Goodson believe more needs to be done to help people.
"We need to create meaningful ways to promote health. Health is a very comprehensive view. It's not just physical. It's mental, spiritual, and social. We hurt when the whole community hurts. Why not come together in a meaningful way."
The strategies were also part of an intervention that reached 39,000 people in Southeast Minnesota's immigrant and refugee communities.
The task force also hopes that some of the strategies in their plan will be useful in future public health emergencies.
Mayo Clinic and Rochester Healthy Community Partnership team up to create a pandemic playbook
“We just got so many questions from the community, and we decided we have to do something for them,” RHCP Communication Leader Luz Molina said. “It was about how to reach out to them and create the culturally appropriate messaging that will help them in terms of understanding what was going on at that time,” RHCP Communication Leader Ahmed Osman said.
February 18, 2022
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Public health experts report that the immigrant and refugee communities continue to be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Mayo Clinic and local organization Rochester Healthy Community Partnership (RHCP) have been working hard to keep this community safe and informed throughout the pandemic.
The pair have been working to close the health disparity gap by using a ‘playbook’.
This playbook includes several strategies on how to address communication gaps, identify community priorities and improve access to needed resources.
RHCP came up with the idea, identifying a need to better distribute COVID related information to the immigrant and refugee community.
“We just got so many questions from the community, and we decided we have to do something for them,” RHCP Communication Leader Luz Molina said.
“It was about how to reach out to them and create the culturally appropriate messaging that will help them in terms of understanding what was going on at that time,” RHCP Communication Leader Ahmed Osman said.
The groups used social media to distribute the information, which included videos and infographics in multiple languages.
“So the messages were around three themes,” Mayo Clinic Physician Dr. Mark Wieland said. “One of them was prevention, and you can imagine how prevention changes throughout the course of the pandemic. More recently of course, with a heavy emphasis on vaccination. The second theme was testing and the logistics of testing, and the third theme was socio-economic impacts.”
Mayo Clinic estimates 39,000 people in the immigrant and refugee community across Southeast Minnesota were reached during the first half of the pandemic.
Community leaders and Mayo Clinic researchers develop playbook for COVID-19 health equity, future pandemics
Results from the study indicated that this community-driven approach led to beneficial systems and policy changes that improved health equity for the communities.
February 16, 2022
These findings expand on a paper published in May 2020 that described the framework for this intervention. Mayo Clinic's medical experts and the community leaders are part of Rochester Healthy Community Partnership (RHCP), a community-academic research program in Rochester, Minnesota, that was formed in 2004.
Mark Wieland, M.D., a community internal medicine physician at Mayo Clinic and the first author on the study, says, "Real-time, bidirectional communication between community and academic partners allowed us to respond rapidly to concerns and changing facts in a way that was driven by community priorities."
Community leaders reported positive perceptions of the intervention, including high perceived efficacy, sustainability and adaptability over time.
"We (the members of the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership) learned to understand what was important to our community, then share narratives and address misinformation," says Miriam Goodson, a member of the Alliance of Chicanos, Hispanics and Latin Americans, and a co-author on the study.
Community leaders also stated that their experience working with the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership made them feel more prepared for future pandemics.
"An amazing group of partners was created that has completely changed the health perception of immigrant and refugee populations (in Southeastern Minnesota). We will overcome COVID-19 and future pandemics with the help of RHCP," says Ahmed Osman, a Somali community member and manager of the Employment Services, Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association Program. Osman is a co-author on the study.
Results from the study indicated that this community-driven approach led to beneficial systems and policy changes that improved health equity for the communities. Community concerns raised by Rochester Healthy Community Partnership influenced regional COVID-19 testing and vaccination policies, and guided strategies to meet the needs of patients who were infected with COVID-19 and had limited English proficiency.
In the future, the researchers plan to further explore the potential to use community-academic partnerships to improve health equity in immigrant and refugee communities.
"Our experience demonstrates that these community-engaged partnerships are especially well-poised to respond to a pandemic or other population health emergencies with populations who are at risk for health disparities," says Irene Sia, M.D., a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases specialist and senior author on the paper.
Mayo researchers, minority communities team up to combat COVID-19 health disparities
Rochester, Minn. — As the COVID-19 pandemic takes more lives each day across the U.S., public health officials report that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately impacted.
May 18, 2020
Mark Wieland, M.D., a community internal medicine physician at Mayo Clinic and the first author on the study says that the pandemic has amplified existing health inequities.
"We know that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionality impacted with chronic diseases and that these same communities tend to have higher COVID-19 infection and death rates," says Dr. Wieland.
These disparities are driven by social determinants of health, such as socioeconomic position, immigration status, and limited English language proficiency as well as other factors, he says.
To find solutions to these complex problems, it's crucial for academic researchers and community stakeholders to work together as equal partners and to leverage existing partnerships, says Irene Sia, M.D., an infectious disease physician at Mayo Clinic, and the study's senior author.
Trusted Messengers May Help Disenfranchised Communities Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy
“What we realized when the pandemic hit in spades in March was that with long-established partnerships we were uniquely positioned to leverage” trust built up over the years between Mayo experts and their community partners, said Dr. Mark Wieland, who helps direct the group and studies the impact of such partnerships. “We realized we were obligated to jump in with two feet.”
December 17, 2020
Gloria Torres-Herbeck gets the flu vaccine every year, but the 53-year-old teacher in Rochester, Minnesota, isn’t yet convinced she wants to be first in line for a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
“I’m not super old, but I’m not as strong as other people,” she said. “So, I need to be realistic on my own situation. Do I want to participate in something that might be a big risk for me?”
This month, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization for one vaccine and is weighing approval of another. So, public health officials around the country are gearing up for what might be as challenging as figuring out how to store a vaccine at 70 degrees below zero Celsius. They need to persuade people who are part of communities that have been hit hard by the virus — those in low-income families and some minority populations, especially Black and Latino residents — to take a vaccine developed in less than a year and approved under emergency use authorization.
Mayo doctor says leveling COVID racial disparities requires building trust.
"Americans' trust in institutions, public health and healthcare is at an all-time low, and some of that is certainly justifiable, particularly as it relates to legacies of racism in some of those institutions in certain eras," Dr. Wieland said. "So, an authentic process of community engagement which fosters trust before any problem needs to be solved or before any funding comes to the table— those can be particularly powerful."
September 22, 2020
Lasting relationships between healthcare systems and minority communities can start to undo years of justifiable mistrust, says researcher Dr. Mark Wieland.
In the United States, Black people are 2.4 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people, according to Mayo Clinic physician and researcher Dr. Mark Wieland. Hispanic, Latino and Indigenous people are 1.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than whites.
These numbers are not due to genetic differences, Dr. Wieland says, but because of existing systems of structural racism.
From a biomedical standpoint, these include health inequities such as higher rates of certain chronic illnesses like diabetes that lead to worse COVID-19 outcomes, and disproportionate access to healthcare.
There are also socioeconomic factors that impact these death rates.
Translating COVID-19 facts and speaking the language of diverse community members.
"We know that when we can provide the right information in a linguistically and culturally competent manner, we are more likely to reach otherwise harder to serve populations which is critical in the fight against COVID-19," says Irene Sia, M.D., Infectious Diseases. Dr. Sia, together with Mark Wieland, M.D., Community Internal Medicine, leads a community-engaged research partnership and uses a community-based participatory research approach to managing the pandemic in Rochester.
July 23, 2020
When it comes to COVID-19 testing, there has been a lot of confusion among members of the public. Molecular testing and serology testing. One test determines whether you have the disease, another determines if you had it and now have antibodies that offer some protection.
These distinctions can be even more confusing for some community members when communicated in their second language.
Mayo Clinic locations serve communities where many other languages are spoken, and it's critical that community members get the information they need in their language, especially during a pandemic.
COVID-19 and race in Minnesota: a tale of two viruses
"It really goes back to social determinants of health," says Mayo Clinic's Dr. Mark Wieland. "People from minority households and immigrant households are more likely to live in multi-generational homes, more likely to have to go to work as essential workers, more likely to be in jobs that have the highest risks for COVID transmission and more reliant on public transportation."
July 19, 2020
Viruses may be colorblind, but the more we understand COVID-19, the worse it seems to get for Black, Hispanic and Native American Minnesotans.
Federal data has always suggested minorities were overrepresented among those who got the illness, but that overrepresentation is far worse than previously imagined.
By late June, Centers for Disease Control data had shown that Blacks made up 13% of the country's population and 22% of its COVID-19 cases, while Latin Americans made up 18% of the population and 34% of all COVID-19 cases.
White people are overrepresented among the elderly, however. Since COVID-19 primarily takes the lives of the elderly, that has distorted the true COVID-19 death rate by race.