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Prevention Research Center

A Collaborative, Community-Owned

Research Agenda

One of the most powerful and impactful partnerships in which Morehouse
School of Medicine has long been engaged is with community residents. A
nationally recognized and award-winning leader in community engagement,
MSM has made positive change through programs and initiatives conceived and
implemented in collaboration with the people in communities the school serves.

The sea change in health equity that MSM is aiming to achieve in building
healthier communities is being vigorously pursued through research,
community service, educational outreach and clinical practice, and MSM’s
Prevention Research Center (PRC) is playing a pivotal role in supporting that
vision.
Therefore, when PRC researchers, including students, go into a community, their
practice is to ask the community what local needs and strengths exist rather than
PRC’s theme is: Risk Reduction and Early Detection in African American and
Other Minority Communities: Coalition for Prevention Research. The center telling community members what they think is needed.
designs community-based participatory research (CBPR), programs and
initiatives in keeping with its mission to advance scientific knowledge in the The PRC’s Community Coalition Board, which governs the Center, practices a
field of prevention in African American and other minority communities. PRC philosophy and approach of engagement through which academia and the com-
munity collaborate, with neighborhood residents at the helm of all strategies. For
Director Tabia Henry Akintobi, Ph.D., MPH, speaks authoritatively about the
criticality of partnering with the community to solve obstinate health problems. example, a community-based health assessment led by the PRC and the CCB in
collaboration with Metropolitan Atlanta residents found high incidents of HIV/
AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases among women and youth in under-
“When the PRC was established in 1998, it was designed to forge equal
partnerships between academicians, researchers and the community,” said Dr. served communities. The Board reviewed this data, which was complemented
by community input on the contextual factors that help to explain the risks and
Akintobi, who is also Associate Professor of Community Health and Preventive
Medicine, Associate Dean of Community Engagement, and Principal guide response strategies. They then developed a research-based STI and
Investigator. “We knew early on that we must have community credibility or the HIV/AIDS prevention intervention with 384 youth, age 14-18, residing in
people that we serve won’t buy in or engage. Without that engagement, we Neighborhood Planning Units and funded by the Centers for Disease Control
cannot bring about transformative change in the health of people living in and Prevention. The project incorporates parents, technology and social media,
to employ an integrated approach to research and to eradicating the pressing
underserved communities.”
health issue. The Office of Community Health will play a vital role in this project
as well as others spearheaded by PRC.
The PRC has made tremendous inroads in community-based participatory
research and in using the findings to identify approaches that bridge the health
gap between people with access to quality healthcare and those with disparities. The research projects approved through this approach are enriched and
enhanced; the partnership provides knowledge and data back into the
Dr. Henry Akintobi, PRC faculty, staff and students believe that the center’s
community-owned research agenda drives the work and the outcomes. community so that the community members own the findings and the actions
developed in response towards improving their health.

24 Morehouse School of Medicine | Annual Report | 2016